Corn Mush
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.
Prepare
Bring 4 quarts of fresh water to a boil in a kettle.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.
Make the mush
Slowly stir in 1½ quarts of cornmeal, letting it sift through your fingers to prevent lumps.
Once mixed, continue adding the cornmeal a little faster until the mixture is thick enough to stir with one hand.
Transfer the mixture to a pan or leave it in the kettle.
Bake and finish
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.
Allow to cool; it can be fried when cold.
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
- Forms the thick body of the mush as its starch swells and sets in the hot water.
- Fresh water
- Hydrates the cornmeal so its starch gelatinises and thickens into a mush.
The step that matters
Adding the cornmeal slowly. Dropping cornmeal in too fast clumps it, because the outer grains hydrate and seal before the inside wets. Sifting it slowly through the fingers keeps the grains separate so the mush cooks 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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