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Bread

Steamed Indian Bread

A steamed bread made with Indian meal, graham flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Indian Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine Indian meal, graham flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

Steam

  1. Steam for 3 hours until cooked through.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Indian meal
Provides the main body and structure of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome texture.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the bread.

The step that matters

Keeping the steam steady. Steaming gently over water that keeps boiling supplies even heat and moisture. Without steady steam the bread can turn out dense or uneven, and the baking soda's rising action depends on the batter staying moist and hot while it sets.

“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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