Name: Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; 1 small cup cornmeal; 1 teaspoon salt; 3 eggs; sugar to taste; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; ½ cup raisins; 1 tablespoon butter

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

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

Boil the milk in a pot.
While boiling, stir in the cornmeal and salt.

Make the custard

Once cool, beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add sugar, ginger, cinnamon, raisins, and butter to the eggs and mix well.
Stir this mixture into the pudding dish.
Add the cold milk and mix until combined.

Bake

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Set the custard into a soft, sliceable structure as they heat and coagulate.
Cornmeal: Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its grainy, sturdy body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base and provides moisture for a tender, creamy texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the savoury corn flavour.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Cinnamon: Contributes warm aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours. The eggs and cornmeal must heat long enough to set the custard. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet in the centre, while the gentle, steady heat of a moderate oven helps prevent the eggs from curdling and turning rubbery at the edges.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, raisin, 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.