Corn Meal Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Add salt to boiling water.
Gradually stir in cornmeal, ensuring the water continues to boil.
Cook for 10 minutes over direct heat.
Then, cook for an additional 2 to 3 hours over boiling water.
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 thick body of the mush as its starch swells and gelatinizes in boiling water.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the cornmeal and provides the liquid that cooks its starch into a porridge.
The step that matters
Gradually stir in cornmeal while the water boils. Adding cornmeal all at once or to water that has stopped boiling can clump and leave dry lumps. Keeping the water at a boil while stirring in the meal disperses the grains so they hydrate evenly and the starch cooks smoothly.
“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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