Name: Indian Pudding— Boiled
Ingredients: 1 pint molasses; 1 pint milk; 4 eggs; 1 pound beef suet, chopped fine; Indian meal (enough to make a thick batter); 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; a little grated lemon peel; flour (for dusting the cloth)

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Pudding— Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Warm the molasses and milk together in a pot.
Beat the eggs and gradually stir them into the molasses and milk mixture.
Add the chopped suet and enough Indian meal to create a thick batter.
Mix in the cinnamon, nutmeg, and grated lemon peel thoroughly.

Boil and serve

Dip a cloth into boiling water, shake off excess, and dust with flour.
Pour the mixture into the cloth, tie it up, leaving room for the pudding to swell.
Boil the pudding for three hours.
Serve hot with a sauce made of drawn butter, wine, and nutmeg.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 help it set firm as the pudding cooks.
Indian meal: Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and grainy texture.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, rich flavor.
Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during boiling.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, helping the batter loosen and cook through.

The step that matters

Leaving room in the cloth for the pudding to swell. Starches and eggs expand as the pudding cooks and absorbs heat. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding is squeezed and can burst or cook unevenly in the pot.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, egg, beef, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, egg, beef, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. 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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Indian Pudding— Boiled