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Boiled Indian Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding made with milk, flour, suet, molasses, eggs, and boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Scald the cornmeal and let it cool.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooled cornmeal with flour, suet, molasses, and salt.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pot and boil for three hours.

  2. Serve with maple syrup.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornmeal
Forms the thick, starchy body of the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure and helps thicken the batter.

The step that matters

Add the eggs to the cooled cornmeal mixture. Eggs scramble and curdle when they meet very hot mixtures. Letting the cornmeal cool first keeps the eggs smooth and lets them bind the batter evenly.

“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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