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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from milk, Indian meal, eggs, butter, sugar, nutmeg, and brandy, baked in pastry-lined dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pasta match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mush

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Stir in enough Indian meal to create a mush and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add salt and butter, then let it cool.

Add eggs and bake

  1. Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the mixture.

  2. Add sugar and grated nutmeg to taste, then stir in the brandy.

  3. Line pudding dishes with pastry, pour in the mixture, and bake.

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 + pastatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  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. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 meal thickens and the eggs enrich.
Indian meal
Cooks into a thick mush whose starch gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Add richness and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild corn flavor.
Brandy
Adds a warm aroma and flavor to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Stir the Indian meal into boiling milk. Adding the meal gradually while stirring prevents lumps, and boiling it fully cooks the starch so the mush thickens evenly before the eggs are added.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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

More indian pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 26Steamed 12Apple 8New England 4Plain 4 See all 344 →

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