Name: Quick Corn Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups cornmeal; 2 cups milk; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 2 tablespoons melted fat; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Quick Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix cornmeal, milk, baking powder, melted fat, egg, and salt until well combined.
Pour the batter into a shallow pan.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal: Forms the bulk of the batter and gives cornbread its grainy structure and texture.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise and become light.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Milk: Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture and richness to the batter.
Melted fat: Adds moisture and tenderness and helps the crumb brown at the edges.

“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.