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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet pudding made with skimmed milk, Indian meal, molasses, and spices, cooked slowly in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Scald the skimmed milk in a saucepan.

  2. While the milk is hot, stir in the Indian meal.

  3. Add the molasses, salt, and ginger or cinnamon, and mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a buttered earthen dish.

Cook

  1. Pour in the cold milk without stirring.

  2. Cook in an Aladdin Pail for five hours.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ginger + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Cornmeal thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich, treacly flavor.
Skimmed milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a custard-like pudding.
Cold milk
Poured on top unstirred, it stays as a layer that thickens slowly and softens the texture during long cooking.

The step that matters

Pour in the cold milk without stirring. Leaving the cold milk on top keeps it separate while the pudding bakes slowly, so it sets into a softer layer rather than blending in and making the cornmeal mixture thin or uneven.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, molasses, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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