Why it works: Wheat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Wheat-Germ Meal Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.
Add a pinch of salt and slowly stir in 1 cup of wheat-germ meal.
Boil slowly for 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve with sugar and butter or cream.
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.
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Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,002 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,071 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Wheat-germ meal
- Thickens the water into a porridge and supplies the body and nutty flavour of the dish.
The step that matters
Stirring in the wheat-germ meal. Adding the meal slowly while stirring keeps it from clumping in the hot water, so it hydrates evenly and the porridge comes out smooth.
“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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