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Dessert

Baked Indian Meal Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, Indian meal, suet, spices, fruit, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Indian Meal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the Indian meal, salt, and sugar or molasses.

  3. Add the shredded suet, ginger, currants or apples, and beaten eggs; mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle fine suet and grated nutmeg on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it bakes.
Indian meal
Thickens the scalded milk into a soft, porridge-like body.
Beef or veal suet
Adds richness and moisture, so the pudding stays tender.
Currants or chopped apples
Add pockets of sweetness and fruity moisture throughout the pudding.
Sugar or molasses
Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, beef, ginger, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, beef, ginger, egg, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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