Recipe for Scrapple
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Chop the steak and fresh pork using a meat chopper.
Boil the meat in water until cooked, leaving just enough water to mix with cornmeal.
Make the mush
Slowly pour in cornmeal while stirring rapidly until it reaches a mush consistency.
Add coarse sea salt to taste and pour the mixture into a long, narrow, square pan.
Let it cool and solidify, then slice into thin strips.
Fry and serve
Dip the strips in cornmeal and fry in boiling lard until golden.
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
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a mush that sets firm enough to slice.
- Steak
- Supplies meat flavor and body to the mush.
- Fresh pork
- Adds fat and richness, which keeps the mixture moist and flavorful.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and browns the coated strips to a golden crust.
The step that matters
Pouring in the cornmeal while stirring. Cornmeal added to hot liquid all at once or without constant stirring forms lumps and uneven thickening. Slow addition with rapid stirring lets starch granules hydrate evenly, producing a smooth mush that sets uniformly.
“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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