Indian Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mush
Bring a pot of water to a boil over the fire.
Add Indian meal a handful at a time, stirring until thick, then add a small amount of salt.
Keep the pot boiling while adding meal, stirring hard with a mush-stick between each handful to prevent lumps.
Once thick, continue boiling for an hour, stirring occasionally.
Cover the pot and place it higher in the chimney to simmer or keep hot for another hour.
Serve
Serve warm, optionally with milk, or place mush on a plate, make a hole, add butter, and fill with molasses.
If left cold, slice and fry in butter.
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
- Indian meal (in the method)
- Cornmeal that thickens into a firm mush as it cooks in boiling water.
- Butter (in the method)
- Adds richness and, when fried, browns the cold sliced mush for a crisp surface.
The step that matters
Adding the meal gradually while stirring. Dropping meal in all at once or stirring too little lets starch clump in hot water, forming lumps that stay dry inside. Adding it a handful at a time while stirring hard keeps the mush smooth.
“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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