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Dessert

Oatmeal Pudding

A steamed pudding made from oatmeal, milk, suet, raisins, currants, sugar, eggs, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the oatmeal

  1. Scald the milk at night.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the oatmeal.

  3. Stir the mixture.

  4. Cover the mixture.

  5. Let it sit until the next day.

Mix the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Stir the eggs into the mixture with all the other ingredients.

Steam and serve

  1. Prepare a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Lay a pudding cloth in a bowl.

  3. Pour the pudding mixture into the cloth.

  4. Tie the cloth tight.

  5. Leave little room for swelling.

  6. Plunge the wrapped pudding into the boiling water.

  7. Cover the pot.

  8. Keep boiling for two hours.

  9. Replenish with water from the kettle as needed.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

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

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the hot milk to become soft and thick.
Milk
Softens the oatmeal and provides the liquid that gives the pudding its moist body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.

The step that matters

Leave little room for swelling. The oatmeal and suet expand as the pudding cooks, so a cloth tied too loosely can let water in or burst. Snug wrapping keeps the pudding compact and its shape intact during the long boil.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, 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.

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