Name: Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup corn meal; 1½ cups whole wheat or rye flour; ⅓ cup oatmeal; ⅔ cup New Orleans molasses; 1 tablespoon shortening (butter or lard); 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 egg; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix all ingredients with sour milk until the mixture is as thick as cake dough.
Pour the mixture into a greased pan.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.
For a steam loaf, place the ingredients in a bucket and steam for two hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).