Name: Steamed Corn Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups Indian meal; 1 cup flour; 2 tablespoons white sugar; 2 cups buttermilk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 heaping teaspoon melted lard

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Combine Indian meal, flour, sugar, buttermilk, baking soda, salt, and melted lard in a bowl.
Beat the mixture well.
Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

Steam and finish

Place the mold in a steamer over a pot of boiling water.
Steam for 1.5 hours.
Transfer to a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes.
Serve warm.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Indian meal: Provides the main cornbread structure and corn flavor.
Flour: Adds structure so the batter holds together after steaming.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda: Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Melted lard: Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter. Steam keeps the batter moist while it cooks through. The baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the buttermilk, so the batter should go into the steamer promptly to keep its rise.

“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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Steamed Corn Bread