Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Indian-meal Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mush
Mix the Indian meal with enough cold water to make a thin batter.
Gradually pour the batter into the boiling water while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Cover and cook gently for 1 to 2 hours, stirring frequently to prevent scorching.
If the mush is too thick, add boiling water carefully.
Fry and serve
To fry, cut cold mush into slices ½ to ¾ inch thick.
Optionally, dip each slice in beaten egg and then in bread or cracker crumbs.
Fry the slices in hot beef dripping, lard, or butter until brown on both sides.
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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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal that thickens the water into a porridge-like mush as it cooks.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the meal and gelatinizes its starch so the mixture thickens as it cooks.
- Beaten egg
- Binds the coating so crumbs stick to the mush slices during frying.
- Bread or cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned outer crust on the fried slices.
The step that matters
Pour the batter slowly into the boiling water while stirring. Adding the thin batter gradually while stirring keeps the meal dispersed, so lumps do not form. Stirring frequently during the long gentle cook also prevents the starch from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot.
“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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