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Scalded Corn-bread

A quick scalded cornbread made with cornmeal, water, salt, lard, egg, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scalded Corn-bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine cornmeal and salt.

  2. Pour boiling water over the lard and cornmeal, then stir until mixed.

  3. Add the egg and sweet milk, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into a bread pan.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 bread and gives it its corn flavour and grainy texture.
Boiling water
Scalds the cornmeal, softening its starch so the batter absorbs liquid and turns moist.
Lard
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness and helps browning on the crust.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling water over the cornmeal. The boiling water must be added to the cornmeal and lard before the egg and milk, so the starch scalds and swells. Adding cold liquid first leaves the batter gritty and dense.

“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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