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Indian Griddle Cakes

A batter of cornmeal, wheat flour, yeast, and eggs cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine warm water, yeast, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Stir in enough yellow cornmeal to create a batter.

  3. Add wheat flour and mix until smooth.

  4. Cover the bowl and let it rise in a warm place overnight.

Cook and serve

  1. In the morning, add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  2. Preheat a griddle and pour batter to cook until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot with butter and syrup.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes it light and airy.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure that holds the risen batter together as it cooks.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes set and brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the batter to add lift and help browning.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. The batter needs a warm place to ferment fully. If it is too cold, the yeast works slowly and the cakes turn out dense rather than light.

“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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