Name: Boiled Indian Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound beef suet, chopped fine; 1½ cups cornmeal; 1½ cups hot water; 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour; 1 cup brown sugar; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, cornmeal, hot water, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for 4 hours or longer.
Serve warm with sugar and cream.

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.

Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,677 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,435 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Beef suet: Provides fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Cornmeal: Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a coarse, hearty texture.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses flavor, and helps moisten the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sugar and moisture to help the pudding rise and lighten.
All-purpose flour: Adds a little structure that helps hold the pudding together.

“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.