Name: French Fried Mush
Ingredients: light corn bread; warm water; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; fresh fat (for frying); a little water

Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

French Fried Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mush

Remove the crust from the corn bread and soak it in warm water for a few minutes.
Add salt and pepper to the soaked bread.

Fry and serve

Heat fresh fat in a frying pan and add a little water.
Stir in the bread mixture and let it cook for about five minutes.
Dish up and serve while hot.

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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together547 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Light corn bread: Forms the base of the mush, providing the bulk that is soaked and fried.
Fresh fat: Frying medium that browns the surface of the mush and adds richness.

“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.