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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet pudding made from tapioca, milk, eggs, coconut, sugar, and lemon essence, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg 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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in water for four or five hours, or overnight.

  2. In a pot, combine the soaked tapioca with one quart of milk, three tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of grated coconut, and a little salt.

  3. Add the yolks of four eggs and the whites of two eggs.

  4. Flavor with lemon essence or other preferred flavor.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake slowly for one hour until a light brown color.

  2. Serve cold with cream or milk and sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

276Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
25 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Tapioca
Swells during soaking and thickens the milk into a soft, chewy pudding body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the pudding its creamy texture.
Eggs
Their proteins set the custard during baking and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Grated coconut
Adds a mild coconut aroma and flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until light brown. Gentle, slow heat lets the egg proteins set the custard evenly. Too much heat or too long in the oven can make the eggs curdle or toughen the texture.

“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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