Skip to main content
Dessert

Indian Meal Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding with eggs, butter, sugar, lemon, topped with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Indian Meal Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar and butter together until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the cornmeal and beat quickly.

  4. Add the lemon juice and rind, then mix again.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 30-40 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, spread currant jelly over the top.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Bind the batter and add richness and moisture while setting as the pudding bakes.
Cornmeal
Provides the body and grainy texture that gives the pudding its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream and the pudding brown lightly.
Lemon juice and rind
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the pudding cool before spreading the currant jelly. Currant jelly is a glaze that melts when spread on a hot surface. Waiting until the pudding has cooled lets the jelly stay in a distinct layer on top instead of soaking in and running off.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes