Name: Fig Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup beef suet, chopped; 2 cups stale bread crumbs; 1 cup milk; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup flour; ½ pound figs, chopped fine; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Milk and fig are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,026 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Work the chopped suet with your hands until creamy, then add the chopped figs.
Soak the bread crumbs in milk, then mix in the beaten eggs, brown sugar, and salt.
Combine the suet and fig mixture with the soaked bread mixture.

Steam and serve

Turn the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 3 hours.

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.

Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,026 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together374 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet: Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Stale bread crumbs: Soak up milk and give the pudding body and a soft, crumbly structure.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm while steaming.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Figs: Provide the main fruit flavour and natural sweetness, with soft pieces throughout.
Flour: Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, milk, sugar, flour, egg):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figthe original
Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, milk, sugar, flour, egg. 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.