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Indian Meal Mush

A thickened cornmeal and wheat flour mush boiled with water, salt, and baking soda, then sliced and fried in butter or meat drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Meal Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mush

  1. Boil the required amount of water in a kettle.

  2. Add enough coarse sea salt to make the water taste salty.

  3. For each quart of water, add a small pea-sized amount of saleratus.

  4. Slowly stir in the sifted cornmeal, ensuring no lumps form.

  5. Cook for 20 minutes until the mush is the consistency of batter.

  6. Add 2 tablespoons of wheat flour for each quart of water and stir thoroughly.

  7. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  8. Remove from the kettle and transfer to a 2-inch deep basin if there is excess.

Fry and serve

  1. Slice the mush thinly and fry in butter or meat drippings until crisp and 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sifted cornmeal
Forms the main body of the mush, setting into a firm slice once cooled.
Wheat flour
Adds body and helps the mush hold together when sliced and fried.
Butter or meat drippings
Conducts heat and fat for frying, producing browning and a crisp surface.
Saleratus
Alkaline leavener that promotes browning and a lighter texture in the mush.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cornmeal. Cornmeal added to boiling water clumps easily if poured in quickly. Adding it slowly while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the mush cooks smooth rather than lumpy.

“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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