Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn-meal Batter-cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal and lard.
Pour boiling water over the mixture and stir until it resembles bread dough.
Let it cool slightly, then add the eggs and salt.
Thin the batter with milk until desired consistency is reached.
Cook and serve
Preheat a griddle and pour batter to form cakes.
Cook until golden brown on both sides and serve hot.
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.
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their grainy structure.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates and gelatinizes the cornmeal starch so the mixture binds into a dough.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cakes set.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and helps keep the cakes from sticking and browning evenly.
The step that matters
Thin the batter with milk until desired consistency is reached.. Cornmeal absorbs liquid as it sits, so the batter can thicken quickly. Adding milk gradually keeps it pourable and prevents cakes that are dense or dry.
“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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