Name: Corn Pudding
Ingredients: 1 tin sweet corn; 1 pint milk; 4 eggs; 2 oz. butter; 8 oz. Allinson fine wheatmeal; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Corn 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, make a batter with the wheatmeal, eggs, and milk.
Add the sweet corn, melted butter, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.
Pour the mixture into a pie dish.

Bake

Bake 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 set the pudding as it bakes.
Allinson fine wheatmeal: Provides the body and structure that holds the pudding together.
Milk: Adds moisture and makes the batter pourable.
Butter: Adds richness and fat for a tender texture.
Sweet corn: Supplies sweetness and the main flavour and texture.