Name: Puddings
Ingredients: Bread (sliced, crusts removed); Boiling milk; Freshly purchased and clarified suet (mutton or beef); Sugar (preferably powdered loaf sugar); Currants; Raisins; Citron; Candied peel; Brandy, rum, or wine

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the sliced bread in boiling milk until absorbed.
Mash the soaked bread to a pulp with a fork.
In a small saucepan, simmer the currants, raisins, citron, and candied peel with a splash of brandy, rum, or wine until absorbed.
Let the fruit cool for a minute, then stir it into the pudding mixture.
Tie the pudding loosely to allow for expansion during boiling.

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.

Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, mutton, sugar, currant, brandy):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, mutton, sugar, currant, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.