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Dessert

New England Indian Meal Pudding

A pudding made from milk, suet, molasses, raisins, spices, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

New England Indian Meal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mush

  1. Scald 2 quarts of milk in a pot.

  2. Gradually add yellow cornmeal until the mixture thickens to a mush consistency.

  3. Stir in the suet, molasses, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 5 to 6 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a soft mush.
Yellow cornmeal
Thickens the milk so the pudding holds its body while baking.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavor and dark color as it browns in the oven.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Thicken the mush before baking. Cornmeal swells and gelatinizes as it heats. If the mixture is too thin when it goes in the oven, the starch may not set, and the long bake will leave a loose, watery pudding.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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