Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Indian Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.
Add the beaten eggs, salt, and melted butter; mix well.
Stir in enough Indian meal to create a thick batter.
Beat the batter for a few minutes.
Bake
Grease your pans and bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until done.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,674 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,986 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Buttermilk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the bread rise and turn tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Indian meal (cornmeal)
- Forms the main body of the bread, giving it its grainy texture and structure.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Beat the batter for a few minutes. Beating incorporates air and begins the reaction between baking soda and buttermilk, so the batter should be mixed promptly before baking. Overbeating after the flour-like meal is added can make the crumb tough, so keep the beating to the stated few minutes.
“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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