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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A milk-based pudding with vermicelli, lemon rind, cinnamon, eggs, 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

Make the pudding base

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

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

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

Finish and cook

  1. Whisk the eggs until frothy, then add them to the mixture along with nutmeg, butter, and sugar.

  2. Remove the spice bag and either 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

Vermicelli
Absorbs the milk and forms the soft, starchy body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the vermicelli absorbs and that the eggs set into.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the vermicelli absorbs at least half the milk. Boiling vigorously can scorch the milk on the pan base and burst the starch unevenly. Gentle heat lets the vermicelli swell evenly and thicken the milk before the eggs are added.

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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