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 ↓
Baked Indian Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Scald and combine
Scald the milk in a double boiler.
Gradually pour the hot milk onto the Indian meal, stirring constantly.
Cook and finish
Cook for one hour, stirring often.
Add the butter and salt, and mix well.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the meal thickens and sets into a custard-like pudding.
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal swells and thickens as it cooks in the hot milk, giving the pudding its body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the finished pudding.
The step that matters
Gradually pour the hot milk onto the Indian meal. Cornmeal clumps when it meets liquid all at once. Pouring slowly while stirring constantly keeps the particles separated so the starch hydrates and thickens evenly as the mixture heats.
“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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