Peptonized Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Make the gruel from your preferred farinaceous food.
Add the cold milk to the warm gruel.
Peptonize
Stir in the pancreatic liquor and bicarbonate of soda.
Cover and keep at the same temperature for about an hour.
Finish and serve
Boil for a few minutes, then sweeten and flavor to taste before serving.
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
What each ingredient does
- Thick gruel
- Provides the starchy body that the enzymes break down during peptonizing.
- Fresh milk
- Adds moisture and milk proteins, softening the texture and giving a mild, rich flavor.
- Liquor pancreaticus
- Pancreatic enzymes break down starch and protein into smaller, more digestible molecules.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Makes the mixture alkaline, which helps the pancreatic enzymes work effectively.
The step that matters
Holding at the same temperature. Pancreatic enzymes only work well within a moderate warm range. Too cold and the breakdown stalls; too hot and the enzymes are destroyed, so the gruel will not be properly peptonized.
“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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