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Mush, Or, As the Italians Call It, Polenta

Polenta made by boiling corn meal in salted water, then cooled, sliced, and fried with butter and optional fried onions, sage, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mush, Or, As the Italians Call It, Polenta

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the polenta

  1. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Gradually add 1 pound of Indian corn meal while stirring constantly.

  3. Boil for 45 minutes, stirring continuously to prevent burning.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the cooked mush into a deep dish and let it cool.

  2. Once cooled, turn it out upside down to serve solid.

  3. Serve hot with milk.

Fry and finish

  1. Cut into slices and fry in butter.

  2. Optionally, add fried onions, sage, parsley, pepper, and salt to the fried slices.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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

Indian corn meal
Its starch thickens as it cooks in water and sets solid once cooled.
Boiling water
Hydrates the corn meal and cooks it into a soft mush.
Butter
Fat that fries the cooled slices, adding richness and browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Boil for 45 minutes, stirring continuously. Corn meal starch thickens quickly and settles on the bottom of the pot, where it can scorch. Constant stirring keeps the mush moving, prevents sticking and burning, and gives an even texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, butter, sage, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, sage, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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