Name: Steamed Corn Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups sweet milk; 2 cups sour milk; 2 cups cornmeal; 2 cups flour; 1 cup syrup; 1 cup sugar; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Combine sweet milk, sour milk, cornmeal, flour, syrup, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 3 hours.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Cornmeal: Provides the main body and coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.
Flour: Adds structure so the batter holds together after steaming.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Sour milk: Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness.
Syrup: Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, caramel-like flavor.

“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.