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Dessert

Indian Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with Indian meal, suet, milk, sugar, molasses, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the suet with the Indian meal and salt.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture.

  3. Add the molasses, sugar, ground cloves, ground allspice, and floured raisins.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered mold.

  2. Steam for 2.5 hours.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Allspice + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Provides the body of the pudding, absorbing the milk to form a thick, set batter.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Contributes dark sweetness and a deep flavor, and adds moisture to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the strong molasses flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk over the mixture. Boiling milk hydrates the Indian meal starch as it is poured in, so the batter thickens evenly. Adding cold milk would leave the cornmeal less gelled and the texture uneven.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, molasses, clove, allspice):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, molasses, clove, allspice. 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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