Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Baked Indian
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the cornmeal base
Boil the milk in a pot.
Stir in the cornmeal and salt.
Cook until thickened, then remove from heat.
Finish and bake
Sweeten with molasses, then add buttermilk and baking soda.
Mix in the butter until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together526 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,674 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,123 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Thickens the boiled milk into a porridge-like base that sets the structure of the bread.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the cornmeal cooks into a thick, moist base.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and a deep, rich flavour and colour to the cornbread.
- Buttermilk or sour milk
- Adds acidity that reacts with the baking soda so the cornbread rises and stays tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Cook the cornmeal until thickened. Cooking cornmeal in boiling liquid gelatinizes its starch, so it thickens properly. Removing it from heat at the right point gives a thick base that holds the batter together.
“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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