Name: Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound beef suet, chopped very fine; ½ cup molasses; 1 pint rich milk; 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon powdered nutmeg; 1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon; 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel; Indian meal (sufficient to make a thick batter)

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, then stir them together.
Beat the eggs and gradually stir them into the milk and molasses, alternating with the suet and Indian meal.
Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon peel, and mix thoroughly.

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, slice and fry for a delicious treat.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Beef suet: Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Molasses: Provides sweetness and a dark color and flavor.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set as it cooks.
Indian meal: Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Milk: Provides liquid that hydrates the meal and adds richness.

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.