Name: Boiled Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart buttermilk or thick sour milk; 2 tablespoons sweet cream; 3 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 3 handfuls flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; Indian meal (to make a rather thin batter)

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine buttermilk, sweet cream, and eggs.
Add baking soda, flour, and salt, mixing well.
Gradually stir in Indian meal until the batter is thin.

Pour

Pour the mixture into a suitable pot for boiling.

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.

Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk: Acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas and help the pudding rise.
Indian meal: Cornmeal that thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and flavor.
Flour: Adds starch that thickens the batter and supports its structure.

“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.