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Indian Meal and Raisins

A porridge made from Indian meal, boiled with water, served with bread, raisins, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Indian Meal and Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the Indian meal in 2 quarts of water overnight.

Cook

  1. Boil the soaked meal for 30 minutes, stirring continuously.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown bread, soaked raisins, sugar, and milk as desired.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Indian meal
Cornmeal forms the thick body of the porridge as its starch swells and gelatinizes when boiled.
Brown bread
Adds a hearty, slightly sweet, toasty flavour alongside the porridge when served.
Soaked raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness as they plump up in the soaking liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the soaked meal for 30 minutes, stirring continuously. Cornmeal can scorch on the bottom of the pot and clump if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed and evenly cooked as it thickens.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, milk. 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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