Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Warm the milk and molasses together in a pot.
Beat the eggs and gradually stir them into the milk and molasses mixture, alternating with the suet and Indian meal.
Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon peel, and mix everything well.
Boil and serve
Dip a cloth in boiling water, shake it out, and lightly flour it.
Pour the mixture into the cloth and 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.
When cold, cut into slices and fry.
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.
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Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,917 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,928 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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 when boiled.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, deep flavour.
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
- Indian meal (cornmeal)
- Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and texture.
- Milk
- Provides liquid and richness that loosens the batter and softens the texture.
The step that matters
Tying the cloth with room to swell. The pudding expands as it cooks, so the cloth must be tied loosely enough to allow swelling. If it is packed tight, the pudding can burst the cloth or cook dense and uneven.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, molasses, milk, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, molasses, milk, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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