Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Polenta
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the polenta
Boil 1 quart of milk in a pot.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt.
Gradually stir in enough golden maize meal to make the mixture thick.
Continue stirring and boiling until smooth.
Add 1 ounce of grated Parmesan cheese and mix well.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.
Once baked, turn out the polenta and serve with additional grated cheese if desired.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,163 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,608 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the maize meal thickens into a creamy mixture.
- Golden maize meal
- Starch thickens the hot milk and gives the polenta its body and structure.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds savory, salty flavor and fat, enriching the polenta.
The step that matters
Gradually stir in the maize meal. Adding the meal slowly while stirring prevents lumps. Continued stirring and boiling lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the mixture.
“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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