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Dessert

Indian Meal Yeast Cakes

A batter of boiled potatoes, hops, cornmeal, ginger, and yeast is shaped into cakes and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and ginger work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 992 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Indian Meal Yeast Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes and hops together.

  2. Strain the mixture over cornmeal, thoroughly scalding it.

Rise and shape

  1. Once cool, add the ginger and yeast.

  2. Let the mixture rise.

  3. Shape it into cakes.

Dry

  1. Allow them to dry.

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. Potato + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together992 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Hops + gingertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and body that bind the mixture into a cohesive dough.
Hops
Contribute bitterness and aroma while helping preserve the mixture.
Cornmeal
Adds structure and grainy texture to the cakes.
Yeast
Ferments the mixture so it rises and develops flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise. Yeast needs the mixture cool enough to stay alive when added, and enough time to ferment. Adding it while hot can kill the yeast, so the cakes will not rise properly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, ginger):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Broccolifits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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