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Southern Spoon Bread

A Southern bread made with butter, milk, hominy or rice, cornmeal, eggs, and salt, baked into a pancake-like loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Southern Spoon Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the butter with the hot hominy or rice.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and slowly stir in the milk.

  3. Gradually add the cornmeal and salt until the mixture is like pancake batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a deep dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot, spooning from the baking dish, and add more butter if desired.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a soft, spoonable custard-like crumb when baked.
Cornmeal
Provides the body and corn flavor that give spoon bread its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the batter bake up tender and loose.
Hominy or rice
Adds soft starch and moisture, giving the batter a tender, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs and milk to the hot mixture. Eggs are best beaten and mixed in gradually, so they blend smoothly. Adding them to very hot starch can cook them unevenly, leaving lumps, so stir steadily while combining.

“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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