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Dessert

Delicate Indian Meal Pudding

A milk-based pudding made with cornmeal, eggs, sugar, ginger, and butter, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Delicate Indian Meal Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Slowly add the cornmeal while stirring briskly; cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add the salt, sugar, and butter, then remove from heat.

  4. When slightly cool, add the beaten eggs until thick and light.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered pudding mold and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

  2. Serve with Hard Sauce or Cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
Thickens the milk into a soft, spoonable custard as it cooks.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and a light, thick texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set texture of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Slowly add the cornmeal while stirring briskly. Cornmeal dropped into hot milk can clump; adding it slowly while stirring disperses the starch so it thickens evenly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

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