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Fried Corn Mush

Fried corn mush is slices of cold corn mush fried until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Corn Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold corn mush into slices about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Heat a small amount of fat in a pan until very hot.

Fry

  1. Optionally, sprinkle the slices with flour before frying.

  2. Alternatively, dip each slice in salted beaten egg and then in bread or cracker crumbs before frying.

  3. Fry the slices until brown and crisp.

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. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cold corn mush
Forms the main body of the dish, set firm when cold so it holds its shape in the pan.
Flour
Optionally dusts the slices so they brown more evenly and crisp at the surface.
Salted beaten egg
Optionally coats the slices, helping crumbs adhere and forming a golden, crisp crust.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Optionally forms an outer crust that browns and crisps when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the slices until brown and crisp. The pan must be very hot before the slices go in. Cold or underheated fat lets the mush soak up oil and stick instead of forming a browned, crisp surface.

“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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