Name: Indian Meal Pudding Boiled
Ingredients: 3 cups sour milk or buttermilk; 3 cups sifted Indian meal; 1½ cups flour; 3 tablespoons sugar or 1 cup molasses; 1 egg; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in milk

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 ↓

Indian Meal Pudding Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine sour milk or buttermilk, Indian meal, flour, sugar or molasses, egg, salt, and baking soda mixture in a large bowl.
Prepare a pudding bag by dipping it in boiling water and dusting the inside with flour; tie it up, leaving space for expansion.

Boil and serve

Place a plate in the bottom of a kettle and add enough boiling water to cover the pudding bag.
Boil for 2 hours.
After boiling, immerse the pudding bag in cold water for a moment.
Serve warm with cream and sugar, or enjoy it cold.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Indian meal: Cornmeal forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it its body and coarse texture.
Sour milk or buttermilk: Acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic milk to produce gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as the pudding sets.
Flour: Adds gluten-forming structure that helps the pudding hold together when boiled.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavor.

The step that matters

Tying the pudding bag. Steam and gas from the baking soda reaction cause the batter to expand, so leaving room in the bag keeps it from bursting or becoming dense.

“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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Indian Meal Pudding Boiled