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Bread

Gruel

A simple cornmeal gruel made by mixing cornmeal with cold water, then adding to boiling water and simmering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Gruel

Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix cornmeal with cold water in a bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture into boiling water.

  3. Add salt and let it boil for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the thickened body of the gruel as its starch gelatinises in the boiling water.
Boiling water
Provides the hot liquid that cooks and swells the cornmeal starch into a porridge.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornmeal into boiling water. Cornmeal added to hot water can clump into lumps if not stirred well, because the outside of each particle hydrates and seals before the inside does. Pre-mixing it with cold water helps the grains disperse evenly before they meet the heat.

“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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