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Dessert

English Plum Pudding for Four Persons

A steamed plum pudding made with suet, dried fruit, candied peel, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

English Plum Pudding for Four Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred and chop the beef suet.

  2. Mix the raisins, currants, and candied orange peel with the flour.

  3. Add the suet, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, lemon rind, orange rind, and sugar. Mix well.

  4. Stir in the orange juice, lemon juice, and beaten eggs until moistened.

Steam and store

  1. Pack the mixture into a mold or kettle, cover, and boil or steam for 8 hours.

  2. Cool, then cover and store in a cool place. Reheat before serving.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Dry breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a tender crumb.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Helps bind the fruit and thicken the batter so it holds together.

The step that matters

Steaming for 8 hours. Long, gentle steaming cooks the eggs and starches through and softens the suet without drying the pudding. Keep the water boiling and the mold covered so the pudding stays moist and evenly cooked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, orange, flour, nutmeg, lemon, sugar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, orange, flour, nutmeg, lemon, sugar. 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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