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Fried Indian Meal Porridge

A fried cornmeal dish cooked with butter and Parmesan, served in sliced portions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fried Indian Meal Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the polenta

  1. Dry 1 pint of yellow meal in the oven and sift it.

  2. In a pot, add 1 quart of boiling water and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Gradually dredge in the meal while stirring constantly.

  4. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes.

  5. Place the pot on the back of the range until moisture evaporates.

  6. Pour the mixture into greased bread tins and let it cool and firm overnight.

Fry and serve

  1. The next morning, cut into half-inch slices.

  2. Dust the slices with a little flour and fry until golden brown.

  3. Add 1 ounce of butter and 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese while cooking.

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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parmesan cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,944 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Yellow meal
Forms the thick body of the dish as its starch sets when cooked and cooled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the slices brown and taste savoury as they fry.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the fried surface brown.

The step that matters

Stirring the meal into boiling water. Adding the meal gradually while stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching, since dry starch clumps when it hits hot liquid unevenly. Cooking then drives off moisture so the mixture can set firm enough to slice.

“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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