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Bread

Family Bread

A simple bread made with Indian meal, yeast, and water, baked thin for breakfast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Family Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine Indian meal and salt.

  2. Add lard or butter.

  3. Gradually pour in 1½ cups of boiling water, stirring after each addition until well mixed. Keep the water boiling while mixing.

  4. Add 2 cups of warm water once the mixture cools.

  5. When the mixture is cool enough, stir in 1 cup of yeast.

  6. Gradually add sifted flour to form a stiff dough.

  7. Knead the dough thoroughly until smooth.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the dough rise overnight in a warm place if it's cold, or a cool place if it's warm.

  2. Bake a thin pan of dough for breakfast.

  3. Break it apart instead of cutting.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the bread, giving it its coarse, grainy texture.
Flour
Adds gluten-building structure so the stiff dough holds together and becomes smooth when kneaded.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise.
Lard or butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and softens its texture.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water to the meal. Boiling water gelatinises the starch in the cornmeal, which is what lets the dough hold together. Pouring it in gradually while stirring keeps it evenly hydrated and prevents lumps. The mixture must cool enough before the yeast goes in, since very hot liquid kills yeast.

“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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