Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Indian Corn Flour Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Pour 4 quarts of boiling water over ½ stone of Indian corn flour, stirring continuously.
Let it cool until warm (about the temperature of new milk).
Mix in 1 stone of fine wheaten flour and ¼ pound of coarse sea salt. Make a hollow in the mixture.
Pour in 2 quarts of yeast thickened with a little flour.
Let the mixture stand overnight.
Shape and bake
Knead the dough well the next morning.
Let it rise for 3 hours.
Divide the dough into loaves.
Place the loaves in tins for 30 minutes.
Bake the loaves until golden brown.
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.
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian corn flour
- Gives the bread its corn flavour and a coarser, more crumbly texture than wheat alone.
- Fine wheaten flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves structure and chew.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn light and airy.
- Boiling water
- Scalds the corn flour, softening its starch so it blends into the dough and holds moisture.
The step that matters
Pouring the boiling water over the corn flour. Boiling water gelatinises the corn starch so the flour absorbs and holds moisture. Stirring continuously prevents lumps of dry flour from forming, which would leave dry pockets in the finished loaves.
“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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