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Spoon Bread with Rice

A bread made from cornmeal, cooked rice, milk, butter, eggs, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spoon Bread with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the cornmeal in a pot.

  2. Combine the scalded cornmeal, cooked rice, milk, butter, and baking powder in a mixing bowl.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture along with a pinch of salt.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a deep baking dish.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes or until a thick brown crust forms.

  3. Spoon out the bread when serving.

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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter and give the bread structure as it sets.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and corn flavour of the bread.
Cooked rice
Adds moisture and a tender crumb to the cornbread.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the bread rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives the bread its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the bread bakes up denser. Fold gently, using a spatula, until just combined.

“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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