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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made with molasses, milk, suet, eggs, spices, and Indian meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk and add the molasses, stirring well.

  2. Beat the eggs vigorously and stir them into the liquid.

  3. Add the chopped suet and enough Indian meal to make a rather thick batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for three hours.

  2. Serve with wine 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Bind the batter and set it into a firm, custard-like body as they cook.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Indian meal
Its starch thickens with heat, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the meal and gives the pudding a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Make the batter rather thick. Cornmeal starch thickens and sets as it heats. If the batter is too thin, the pudding will stay loose and fail to hold its shape when cooked.

“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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