Gruel

Ingredients

• two spoonfuls of sifted corn-meal
• a pint of boiling water
• season it with salt to your taste, or sugar if you prefer it

Method

1. 1

   Mix corn-meal with a little water, then stir into boiling water in a skillet.

2. 2

   Let it cook until done, then season.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 143. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

gruel of either groats or oatmeal ; set it on the fire, adding wine, sugar, and spices, as permitted to the patient. Rice Caudle. Rub a table-spoonful of ground rice into a pint of water by degrees ; boil it till smooth and thick ; sweeten with a table-spoonful of white sugar, and flavor with a slight sprinkling of nutmeg. If too thick dilute it. This is nourishing food for teething children, and a gill of pure milk boiled with it renders it yet more so. VIRGINIA COOKEBT-BOOK, 309 Floub CA-UDLE. Put on half a pint of new milk to boil in a small stew- pan, and rub two teaspoonf uls of flour into half a pint of cold water ; as soon as the milk boils up, stir the flour and water into it, and stir constantly over a slow fire until the mixture is well thickened, which will be in about fifteen minutes. (To be used when astringent food is required.) Hasd Biscuit fob Invalids. Work a pound of flour into a stiflf paste with two ounces of butter, and as much skimmed milk as will leave it stiff enough to roll ; add half a teaspoonf ul of salt, and beat it with a rolling-pin until very smooth. Roll it very thin, and cut it into round biscuits. Bake them six minutes. • Crisp Biscuits. Knead well into a stiff dough a light quart of flour, the yolk of an egg^ and half a gill of milk ; add a very little salt. When well kneaded until very smooth, cut it into small, thin biscuits. Bake them in a slow oven until they are crisp. Mush. Have ready a clean saucepan, and into it put a pint of boiling water ; drop in a teaspoonful of butter, and sprin- kle in sifted corn-meal with one hand, while you stir the mixture with the other ; add a pinch of salt ; keep stir- ring, and adding meal all the time until the mush is as thick as you like it, and perfectly smooth. No food can be more simple and digestible. With the addition of cream many persons are very fond of it, and sugar, too, may be added at pleasure. By this same recipe make the mush that, when fried, is always considered an indispensable part of the dish of fried chickens, and is 310 YIROINIA COOKERY-BOOK. never missing at any dinner-party given in Virginia dur- ing the early summer months. To have it in perfection, it should be made early in the morning, spread out thin on dishes to cool and rise, and only cut into little square cakes to fry just before dinner- time. Gbubl. Thia is made from various grains; but if you ask for " gruel " in Virginia, it will be always understood that you mean Indian-meal gruel, as corn-meal is one of the staple articles of diet there. It is made thus : mix two spoonfuls of sifted corn-meal in a very little water ; have ready a clean skillet, with a pint of boiling water in it ; stir it gradually in, and let it stay over the fire until the meal is done ; then season it with salt to your taste, or sugar if you prefer it

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.