Name: Old Fashioned Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart skim milk; 2 cups cornmeal; 1½ cups brown sugar; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 quart cold skim milk; ½ cup all-purpose flour; Butter (size of an egg); ½ cup sweet cream

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Boil 1 quart of skim milk, then remove from heat.
Stir in 2 cups of cornmeal, 1½ cups of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of ginger, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 quart of cold skim milk.
Add ½ cup of flour and mix well.

Bake

Butter a baking dish with butter the size of an egg.
Pour the mixture into the dish and drizzle ½ cup of sweet cream on top, stirring slightly.
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cornmeal: Forms the thick body of the pudding as it cooks and sets.
Skim milk: Provides the liquid that the cornmeal absorbs and cooks into a custard-like base.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and molasses flavor while helping browning on the surface.
Flour: Adds extra thickening so the pudding holds its shape when sliced.
Sweet cream: Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and deepening the top layer.

The step that matters

Slow baking. Cornmeal needs long, gentle heat to fully swell and set. Baking too hot can scorch the surface or leave the centre loose and grainy.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Capersfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, cream. 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.