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Preserve

Cornmeal Mush

A simple cornmeal porridge made by cooking cornmeal in boiling water with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cornmeal Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt to the boiling water.

Cook the porridge

  1. Gradually stir in 1 cup of cornmeal, a handful at a time, and keep stirring continuously to prevent lumps.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally until thickened.

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Its starch swells in the hot water and thickens the mixture into a porridge.

The step that matters

Adding the cornmeal gradually while stirring. Cornmeal starch clumps when it hits hot liquid all at once, with the outside gelling before the inside hydrates. Adding it a handful at a time and stirring constantly separates the grains so they hydrate evenly and the porridge stays smooth.

“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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