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Oriental Corn Bread

A quick baked corn bread made with cornmeal, eggs, oil, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Oriental Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Bring 1 pint of water to a boil and add salt to taste.

  2. Slowly stir in enough cornmeal to make a thick mush.

  3. Remove from heat and beat the mixture with a spoon until somewhat cool.

  4. Beat in 2-3 egg yolks and 1 tablespoon of oil or clarified butter.

  5. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Oil a baking pan, pour in the batter, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the thick mush that gives the cornbread its body and crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, softening the texture and helping the batter set.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, they trap air that lightens the cornbread as it bakes.
Oil or clarified butter
Adds fat for moisture and a tender crumb, and helps prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates it and leaves a denser cornbread.

“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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