Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Indian Bread
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.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the warmed buttermilk and baking soda until dissolved.
Add the beaten eggs, salt, and melted butter; mix well.
Stir in enough Indian meal to create a thick batter.
Beat the batter for a few minutes.
Bake
Grease your baking pans and pour in the batter.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.
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.
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,674 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,986 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Buttermilk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the bread rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, lightening the batter as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Indian meal (cornmeal)
- Provides the main body and corn flavour, setting into the crumb of the bread.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the crumb.
The step that matters
Combining the buttermilk and baking soda. The soda must fully dissolve and be worked in before baking. Undissolved pockets of soda leave bitter spots and uneven rising, because the gas is released only where the alkali meets the acid.
“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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