Cornmeal Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Sprinkle a pint of cornmeal into rapidly boiling salted water, stirring all the time.
Cook for half an hour.
Alternatively, mix the cornmeal with a pint of milk and a teaspoonful of salt, then turn it slowly into a quart of boiling water; stir constantly.
Cook for half an hour.
This may be eaten cold or hot, with milk, with butter and sugar, or with syrup.
When cold it can be cut into slices and browned on both sides in a saute‑pan, and used as a vegetable dish, or as a breakfast dish, and may be eaten with syrup.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the thick body of the mush as its starch swells and sets while cooking.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness, and a mild richness when the cornmeal is cooked in it.
The step that matters
Stirring the cornmeal into boiling water. Cornmeal added slowly and stirred constantly disperses evenly; dumped in at once or left unstirred, it clumps into lumps that never fully hydrate.
“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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