Cornmeal Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a pot.
Gradually add 1 cup of cornmeal to the boiling water, stirring constantly.
Transfer the mixture to a double kettle.
Cook
Cover and let it cook without stirring for about 30 minutes.
Check the water level in the outer kettle and add hot water as needed.
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
- Its starch thickens with the hot water as it cooks, setting the porridge into a creamy mass.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the cornmeal and carries the heat that gelatinizes its starch into a porridge.
The step that matters
Adding the cornmeal to the boiling water. Cornmeal added slowly while stirring disperses evenly. Dumping it in at once forms lumps that stay dry inside, leaving an uneven texture.
“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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