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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A sweet, boiled pudding made with eggs, suet, molasses, cornmeal, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Warm the milk and molasses in a saucepan.

  2. Stir well, then add the eggs, suet, cinnamon, nutmeg, and grated lemon peel.

  3. Mix thoroughly and add enough cornmeal to create a thick batter.

Cook the pudding

  1. Dip a cloth in boiling water, shake off excess, and dust lightly with flour.

  2. Turn the mixture into the cloth, tie it securely, leaving room for the pudding to swell.

  3. Boil for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with a sauce made of melted butter, sugar, vinegar or lemon juice, and a little nutmeg.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
Cornmeal
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and grainy texture.
Molasses
Adds dark color and sweetness, with a deep, caramel-like flavor.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and makes the batter pourable.

The step that matters

Leaving room in the cloth for the pudding to swell. Cornmeal and eggs expand as the pudding boils and sets. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding is squeezed, which can make it dense or split the cloth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, molasses, flour, sugar. 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

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