Name: Plain Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup fresh suet, chopped fine; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 egg; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup seeded raisins; Flour, enough to make a stiff batter; 2 teaspoons baking powder

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the suet, salt, egg, sweet milk, sugar, raisins, and baking powder sifted into the flour.
Add flour until the mixture forms a stiff batter.

Boil and serve

Wet a clean five-pound sugar sack and fill it with the batter.
Tie the sack closely and drop it into boiling water.
Boil for 1.5 hours.
Serve with brandy or lemon sauce.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Fresh suet: Melts during boiling to keep the pudding moist and rich.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding is less dense.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender crumb.
Seeded raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the sack closely before boiling. A loose tie lets water seep into the sack and dilute the batter, while a tight seal keeps the pudding dense and moist as it cooks in the boiling water.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Figfits less well
Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, flour. 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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Plain Suet Pudding