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Dessert

Indian Meal Pudding

A sweet pudding made with milk, Indian meal, butter, eggs, sugar, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Meal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk and stir in the Indian meal as if making mush.

  2. Let it boil for 15 minutes, stirring until perfectly smooth.

  3. Add the salt and butter while it is hot.

  4. Once cool, stir in the beaten eggs.

Flavour and bake

  1. Add the other ingredients.

  2. If the mixture is not sweet enough, add more sugar.

  3. Bake in a light pastry, like other puddings.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding and bind it into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Indian meal
Thickens the milk into a smooth mush that gives the pudding its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the set custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the salt and dairy.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiling milk and meal. Cornmeal-type starch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred. Constant stirring for the full 15 minutes keeps the mixture smooth and gelatinised before the eggs are added.

“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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