Why it works: Milk and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,243 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Indian Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the batter
Chop the suet into small pieces.
In a large bowl, stir together the cornmeal, sour milk, suet, baking soda, molasses, and salt.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Cook and serve
Boil or steam for 3 hours.
Serve with sweetened cream.
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.
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main structure and body of the pudding as it cooks.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture.
The step that matters
Boil or steam for 3 hours. A long, steady simmer keeps the pudding cooking evenly without drying out. If the water boils dry or the pot is left to boil hard, the pudding can scorch or turn dense and uneven.
“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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