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Veal Pudding

A steamed pudding of veal, bacon, thyme, and gravy, covered with suet crust and dough lid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a clean frying pan over low heat.

  2. Add the veal, bacon, thyme, pepper, and salt, then cook for about 10 minutes.

  3. Add warm water and bring to a boil.

  4. Let it cool.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Line a pudding dish with the suet crust.

  2. Place the veal and bacon mixture in the dish and pour the gravy over it.

  3. Roll out a piece of dough to form a lid, then place it on top, sealing the edges with your thumb.

  4. Tie the dish in a pudding cloth.

Cook

  1. Place it in a saucepan of boiling water and keep boiling for about one hour until done.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main body of the filling and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Suet crust
Lines and encloses the filling, forming the pudding's pastry casing.
Butter
Fat for cooking the veal, adding richness and flavor to the filling.
Bacon
Adds savory, smoky fat that flavors the veal and the gravy.

The step that matters

Sealing the lid. Edges must be sealed tightly so the steaming water cannot enter and the juices stay inside, keeping the filling moist while it cooks.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, pepper. 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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