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Dessert

Indian Meal Pudding

A sweet pudding made from boiled meal, molasses, eggs, baking soda, butter, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, beaten eggs, baking soda, and butter.

  2. Stir in enough boiled meal to create a thick batter.

  3. Add ginger to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until golden brown.

  2. Serve with a liquid sauce.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + gingertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich, deep flavor to the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the pudding structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Boiled meal
Forms the thick batter body that gives the pudding its main structure.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiled meal. The batter must be thick but still pourable; too much meal makes it dense and dry, while too little leaves it loose and slow to set. Adding it gradually lets you judge the consistency.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, butter. 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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