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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A sweet pudding made from milk, vermicelli, eggs, lemon rind, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vermicelli

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the vermicelli, lemon rind, and cinnamon tied in a cloth.

  3. Simmer gently until the vermicelli absorbs half the milk.

Enrich the mixture

  1. Whisk the eggs until frothy and add them to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the nutmeg, butter, brandy, and sugar.

  3. Remove the spice bag.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in a mold for 30 minutes or bake in a dish.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli softens in and the eggs set into.
Vermicelli
Absorbs the milk and thickens the pudding, giving it body and a soft texture.
Eggs
Set with heat to give the pudding its structure and a tender, custardy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the milk and spices.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the whisked eggs. Egg proteins set when heated and can scramble into lumps if the mixture is too hot or the eggs go in too quickly. Keep the mixture warm but not boiling, and stir while adding the eggs so they blend smoothly and set evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, egg, nutmeg, butter, brandy, 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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