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Boiled Flour Gmel

A gruel made from boiled barley and boiled flour, simmered with milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and flour work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 582 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Flour Gmel

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley water

  1. Wash the barley.

  2. Boil it in 1 pint of water for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the barley.

  4. Place it in a jug.

  5. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the barley.

  6. Cover with a cloth.

  7. Let it cool.

  8. Stir.

  9. Strain.

  10. Set aside for use.

Make the boiled flour

  1. Press the best white flour into a pudding basin until compact.

  2. Tie the basin with a cloth.

  3. Boil continuously for 12 hours.

  4. Remove the cloth.

  5. Let it cool.

  6. Grate or roll until smooth.

  7. Store in covered jars for later use.

Make the gruel

  1. Mix 4 tablespoons of the flour with ¼ pint of water until smooth.

  2. Pour ¾ pint of boiling milk or water over the mixture.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring continuously.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine pearl barley
Its starch thickens the liquid and gives the gruel a soft, light body.
Boiled flour
Long boiling cooks the flour so it thickens smoothly and gives the gruel its body.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the gruel when used in place of water.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with cold water until smooth before adding the boiling liquid. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps, because the outer starch gelatinises before the inside wets. Blending it smooth first lets the starch disperse evenly, and continuous stirring during the 10-minute boil keeps the gruel even.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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