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Fried Corn Meal Mush

A fried cornmeal mush made by boiling cornmeal, adding flour, cooling, slicing, rolling in flour, and frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Fried Corn Meal Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mush

  1. Bring salted water to a boil.

  2. Gradually sprinkle in fresh corn meal, stirring until smooth.

  3. Continue to stir and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Add a little wheat flour and mix well.

Mold and slice

  1. Pour the mixture into a wet mold or muffin rings.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Remove from the mold.

  4. Cut into ½ inch thick slices.

  5. Roll the slices in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry slowly in hot lard or drippings.

  2. Serve with molasses or maple syrup.

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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Wheat + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh corn meal
Its starch swells in boiling water and sets into a firm mush that holds its shape.
Wheat flour
Adds extra starch and gluten to help the mush bind so the slices hold together.
Lard or drippings
Conducts heat for frying and gives the slices a browned, crisp surface.
Molasses or maple syrup
Adds sweetness and a rich, caramel-like flavor to the fried slices.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the corn meal in gradually while stirring. Corn meal starch must be dispersed before it swells in hot water. Adding it all at once forms lumps that stay raw inside, so stirring constantly while adding it slowly gives a smooth mush.

“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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