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Porridge, Lentil
To every quart of water add about six table-spoonfuls of lentil flour; let the whole boil for about fifteen minutes, season with pepper and salt, and serve with milk as an accompaniment.
A plain gruel of lentil flour and water, of the kind Victorian cookery books grouped with invalid and nursery food. It works, but the technique matters more than the ingredients.
- Lentil flourSold today as lentil flour or besan-style pulse flour in health-food shops and South Asian groceries; red lentil flour gives the mildest flavour. If you cannot find it, whole red lentils ground fine in a spice grinder or blender do the same job.
- Slurry firstThe hinge of the dish. Whisk the flour into a little cold water to a smooth cream, then stir that into the rest of the water before heating. Tipping dry pulse flour into hot water gives lumps that fifteen minutes of boiling will not break down.
- QuantitiesSix tablespoons is roughly 45-55 g depending on how finely the flour is milled, against a quart of water: about 1.14 litres if the book's imperial quart is meant, some 950 ml by the American measure. Either way it is a thin, drinkable porridge; for a spoonable consistency use half again as much flour.
- The fifteen minutesNot padding. Raw pulse flour tastes chalky and green, and the starch needs time to swell. Keep it at a bare simmer and stir often, since it catches on the bottom of the pan readily once it thickens.
- SeasoningThe recipe seasons with pepper and salt at the end; salting the water at the start instead gives a less flat result. A bay leaf or a little onion in the water, fished out before serving, is a modern addition the recipe does not call for.
- ServingThe milk is meant to be poured over at table rather than cooked in, which keeps the porridge from turning claggy as it stands. Cooking it in milk from the start is possible but scorches easily.
- YieldA quart makes four modest bowls. It thickens considerably on cooling and will need loosening with water or milk if reheated.
Lentil flour occupied an odd position in nineteenth-century British kitchens: cheap, filling and widely recommended for invalids, children and the elderly. The trade in it was helped enormously by the patent-food boom of the 1850s and 60s, when Du Barry's Revalenta Arabica was sold at extraordinary prices as a cure for a long list of complaints; analysts of the day reported that it was substantially lentil flour, and the resulting publicity, mocking as much of it was, left lentil meal a familiar grocery item. Cassell's gives it here without any therapeutic claims at all - just water, flour, salt and a jug of milk.