Why it works: Flour and milk 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 Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.
In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, graham flour, dissolved baking soda, molasses, and salt.
Steam and serve
Fill pound baking powder cans halfway with the batter and cover them.
Steam the cans for about 3 hours.
Optionally, add raisins to improve the bread.
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Flour and milk 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
- Yellow cornmeal
- Provides the bulk and coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.
- Graham flour
- Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor.
- Sour milk
- Supplies moisture and acid that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the bread.
The step that matters
Fill the cans only halfway. The batter rises as the baking soda reacts and gas expands during steaming. Filling the cans halfway leaves room for this rise, so the bread does not overflow or become dense.
“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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