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 ↓
Plain Indian 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.
Prepare the cornmeal
Mix the cornmeal with half of the milk.
Make the pudding base
Heat the remaining milk over hot water until boiling, then add the butter, ginger, and salt.
Once scalding hot, stir in the cornmeal mixture and cook for several minutes until smooth and thick.
Remove from heat and stir in the brown sugar; let it cool slightly.
Beat the egg yolks into the batter one at a time.
Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the batter.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.
Serve with "Fairy Butter" or with sugar and cream.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body, and its starch thickens into a firm, spoonable pudding as it cooks.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and gives the pudding its moist, tender texture.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour, and keeps the pudding moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Cooking the cornmeal mixture until thick. Cornmeal starch must cook fully in hot liquid to swell and thicken; if the mixture stays thin or grainy, the baked pudding will be loose and gritty. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Gingerthe original
- Parsleyfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, egg. 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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