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Dessert

Fried Cornmeal Muffins

Fried cornmeal muffins made with cornmeal, salt, sugar, boiling water, eggs, milk, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓

Fried Cornmeal Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix cornmeal, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Gradually pour in boiling water while beating well.

  3. Cover and let sit overnight.

  4. Add beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

Fry the muffins

  1. Dip a tablespoon in cold milk.

  2. Scoop batter with the spoon.

  3. Fry scoops in boiling lard, turning each one while cooking.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main structure and body of the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help hold the fried shapes together.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness and helps the surface brown in frying.
Lard
Fries the batter, giving a crisp, browned exterior and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Pouring in the boiling water while beating. Adding boiling water gradually while beating keeps lumps from forming. The hot water swells the cornmeal starch, which thickens the batter and lets it set so it holds its shape in the hot fat.

“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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