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Indian-meal Dumplings

A dumpling made from soaked Indian meal, flour, suet, molasses, and water, boiled for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Indian-meal Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meal

  1. Soak the Indian meal, skim it, and boil it in 3 quarts of water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the meal from the water and mix it with the flour, salt, molasses, and suet.

  3. Cut the mixture into small pieces and flour some cloths.

Shape and boil

  1. Shape the mixture into balls about 3 inches in diameter and tie each ball in a cloth.

  2. Boil the dumplings for 1 hour.

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. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the dumplings, giving them their bulk and coarse texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the mixture holds together when shaped and boiled.
Suet or fat
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the dumplings tender rather than dry.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a darker color while helping keep the dumplings moist.

The step that matters

Shape and tie each ball in a cloth. The cloth must be tied firmly enough to hold the shape but with room for the dumpling to swell as it cooks. If it is tied too loosely, water can soak in and make the dumpling soggy and loose.

“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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