Name: Corn Bread
Ingredients: ½ pint buttermilk; ½ pint sweet milk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 2 eggs; 9 tablespoons sifted cornmeal; 1 egg-sized piece of lard; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Sweeten the buttermilk with baking soda. If you don't have buttermilk, use water and baking powder instead.
Beat the eggs together in a bowl.
Pour the milk into the eggs and mix well.
Gradually add the cornmeal to thicken the mixture.
Melt the lard in a pan on the stove.
Pour the melted lard into the batter to grease the pan.
Add salt and mix until combined.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,986 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Buttermilk + milktop 41% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).