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Polenta, an Italian Dish.

Polenta is a thick cornmeal dish cooked in milk and seasoned with salt, cayenne, mace, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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, an Italian Dish.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the semolina

  1. Bring 1 quart of milk to a boil and add ½ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Gradually stir in 5 ounces of semolina while continuing to stir.

  3. Let the mixture boil gently for 8 to 10 minutes until very thick, preventing it from sticking.

  4. Pour the cooked semolina into a greased basin and let it cool for several hours until solid.

Slice and layer

  1. Cut the solidified polenta into half‑inch slices using a sharp knife or thin wire.

  2. Grease the basin again and sprinkle a little cheese at the bottom.

  3. Layer the first slice of polenta, then add a thick layer of cheese mixed with ½ teaspoon cayenne and 1 teaspoon pounded mace.

  4. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Milk + semolinatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together316 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Forms the thick, solid body of the polenta as it cooks and sets.
Milk
Cooks with the semolina to form a thick, creamy mixture that sets firm when cooled.
Cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and melts into the layers to bind them together.
Butter
Greases the basin so the set polenta releases cleanly.

The step that matters

Stirring in the semolina. Adding semolina to boiling milk without constant stirring can cause lumps and scorching on the bottom. Continuous stirring keeps the starch dispersed evenly so the mixture thickens smoothly and sets firm when cooled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, semolina, butter, cheese):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, semolina, butter, cheese. 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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