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Dessert

Indian Meal Pudding

A baked pudding made from cornmeal, milk, egg, butter, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Meal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the Indian meal with the boiling milk in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg, melted butter, pounded sugar, salt, nutmeg, and ginger. Stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal (cornmeal)
Provides the bulk and grainy body of the pudding as it thickens in the hot milk.
Boiling milk
Hydrates the cornmeal so it swells and softens into a spoonable mixture.
Egg
Sets during baking, binding the pudding into a firm but tender custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the baked pudding tender.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing the cornmeal into the boiling milk. Cornmeal must be stirred in well so it hydrates evenly; dry pockets stay grainy and the starch swells unevenly, leaving a lumpy texture.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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