Skip to main content
Main

Fried Mush

A fried mush made from Cream of Wheat, boiled with water and salt, then sliced, coated in egg and cornmeal, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Wheat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Make the porridge

  1. Add salt to boiling water.

  2. Slowly stir in Cream of Wheat.

  3. Place in a double boiler and cook for 45 minutes.

  4. Pour into a square pan to harden.

Cut and fry

  1. Once hardened, slice into uniform pieces.

  2. Dip slices in diluted egg, then coat with cornmeal.

  3. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + wheattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream of wheat
Thickens the boiling water into a firm porridge that sets when cooled.
Diluted egg
Gives the cornmeal coating something to cling to and helps it brown.
Cornmeal
Forms a crisp golden crust when fried.
Hot lard
Conducts heat to crisp the coating and browns the outside.

The step that matters

Let the porridge set fully before slicing. Cream of Wheat must cool and firm completely in the pan; cutting it while warm makes slices that break apart and absorb too much fat when fried.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes