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Breakfast

Fried Corn Mush for Breakfast

A breakfast dish of fried cornmeal mush, made by boiling cornmeal in water and milk, then frying slices in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Fried Corn Mush for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mush

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, stir together 1 pint of cold milk, 1 pint of corn meal, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Gradually pour the corn meal mixture into the boiling water, stirring continuously.

  4. Let it boil for 30 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning.

  5. Cool the mixture and refrigerate overnight.

Bread and fry

  1. Slice the chilled corn mush, dip each slice in a beaten egg, and coat with bread or cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the slices in boiling 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the thick mush that sets firm when chilled, giving the slices their body.
Egg
Binds the coating so the crumbs stick to the chilled mush slices.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the mush, along with the corn meal.

The step that matters

Stirring the corn meal into the boiling water. Corn meal added to hot liquid can clump and scorch on the bottom. Pouring it in gradually while stirring continuously keeps it smooth and prevents burning, which is why the mush is stirred often during the 30-minute boil.

“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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