Johnny-cake and Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Make the johnny cake
In a bowl, mix cornmeal and coarse sea salt.
Pour boiling water over the mixture to form a stiff dough.
Thin the dough with a little cold water as needed.
Grease hot griddles lightly and bake the dough until golden brown.
Make the mush
For mush, bring water to a boil in a kettle.
Slowly stir in sifted cornmeal until it thickens to your desired consistency.
Add salt to taste while stirring in the cornmeal.
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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of both the johnny cake dough and the mush, setting into a thick, starchy texture.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the cornmeal and gelatinizes its starch, turning it into a stiff, cohesive dough.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cornmeal and sharpens its corn flavor.
The step that matters
Pour boiling water over the mixture to form a stiff dough. Cornmeal needs boiling water to fully hydrate and gelatinize its starch; cooler water leaves grainy, crumbly dough that will not bind well.
“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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