Name: Indian Meal Doughnuts
Ingredients: 1½ cups boiling milk; 2 cups Indian meal; 2 cups wheat flour; 1 cup butter; 1½ cups sugar; 3 eggs; 1 tablespoon nutmeg or cinnamon; hot lard for frying

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Indian Meal Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Pour boiling milk over Indian meal and let it cool.
Add wheat flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg or cinnamon.
If the mixture is not stiff enough, add equal portions of wheat flour and Indian meal.
Let the dough rise until very light.

Shape and fry

Roll the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into small diamond shapes.
Fry the doughnuts in hot lard until golden brown.

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 + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together359 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal: Provides cornmeal body and a coarse, tender crumb in the dough.
Wheat flour: Builds the gluten structure that holds the dough together and lets it rise.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs: Add structure, richness, and help the dough rise and set.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during frying.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until very light. Yeast or other leavening needs enough time to aerate the dough; underproofed dough stays dense and heavy, so the doughnuts fry up tough rather than light.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, wheat, flour, butter, sugar, egg):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Turmericfits less well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, wheat, flour, butter, sugar, egg. 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.

Wheat Muffins48 recipes

Whole Wheat Muffins12 recipes

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

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Indian Meal Doughnuts