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Dessert

Boiled Colonial Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made with molasses, beef suet, milk, spices, eggs, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Colonial Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Heat the molasses over low heat until just below boiling.

  2. Add the milk, suet, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, lemon rind, and salt.

  3. Beat the eggs well and mix them in.

  4. Add enough cornmeal to create a stiff batter.

Boil and serve

  1. Flour a cloth, dipping it into boiling water first.

  2. Turn the mixture into the cloth and tie it securely, leaving room for the pudding to swell.

  3. Place it in a covered kettle of boiling water and cook for three hours.

  4. Serve with brandy, vanilla, or lemon sauce.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the dark color, deep sweetness and rich flavor of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Cornmeal
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and grainy structure.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Leaving room in the cloth. The pudding swells as the cornmeal absorbs liquid and the eggs set. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding has no room to expand and may burst or cook unevenly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Cuminfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, beef, milk, cinnamon, egg, clove, nutmeg. 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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