Mush, or Hasty-pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mush
Pour 1 quart of boiling water into a porcelain saucepan and place it on the fire.
In a bowl, mix 1 cup of finely sifted Indian meal with enough cold water to make a smooth paste.
Stir the meal mixture into the boiling water along with 1 teaspoon of salt.
Continue stirring constantly for 20 to 30 minutes until it thickens to a soft, stirring consistency.
Serve or set
Serve with milk, cream, or butter and syrup.
For cold mush, pour into shallow pans wet with cold water and let set to mold.
Fry
To fry, heat butter in a pan until it sizzles, then add the molded mush and fry until golden.
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
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal forms the thick body of the mush as its starch swells and sets in boiling water.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the meal and gelatinises its starch, turning it into a thickened porridge.
- Butter
- Fat for frying the molded mush, giving it a golden, crisp browned surface.
The step that matters
Stirring the meal into the boiling water. Adding the paste to boiling water while stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed; if it sits still, lumps form and the mush scorches on the bottom of the pan.
“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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