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Steamed Indian Bread

A steamed bread made with sour milk, Indian meal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Indian Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, Indian meal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

Steam

  1. Steam for three hours.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Indian meal
Cornmeal provides the main body and structure of the bread.
Flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the loaf holds together after steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to leaven the batter as it steams.

The step that matters

Steam for three hours. Steaming must stay gentle and steady so the batter cooks through and rises evenly without drying out. Letting the water boil dry or lifting the lid often can leave the bread dense or uneven.

“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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