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Nantucket Indian Meal Bannock

A baked cornmeal-based bannock made with milk, eggs, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Nantucket Indian Meal Bannock

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Scald the Indian meal with the milk and mix until smooth.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and yolks, sugar, and salt.

Bake

  1. Pour into a baking dish and bake for 1.5 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Indian meal
Cornmeal forms the body of the bannock and thickens into a soft, set crumb when baked.
Eggs
Eggs add structure and richness, and the whites help the bake rise and hold its shape.
Milk
Milk hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture and tenderness to the finished bake.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Scalded cornmeal is very hot, and adding beaten eggs straight away can partly cook them into lumps and weaken the batter's rise. Cooling first keeps the eggs smooth and evenly mixed.

“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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