Why it works: Milk and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,243 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Boiled Corn Meal Pudding, Without Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Stir the Indian meal, salt, molasses, chopped suet, and dissolved soda into the boiling milk in a large pot.
Tie the mixture tightly in a cloth, leaving room for it to swell.
Boil for four hours.
Serve
Serve with sweet sauce.
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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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Forms the body of the pudding, setting into a firm, thick texture as it cooks.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and a deep, dark flavor.
- Chopped suet
- Adds fat, giving richness and a moist, tender crumb.
- Dissolved soda
- Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
- Boiling milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the meal and helps set the pudding.
The step that matters
Leave room for the pudding to swell. Cornmeal and soda expand as the pudding cooks, so a tightly tied cloth with no room to swell can burst or give a dense result.
“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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