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Dessert

Railroad Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, raisins, flour, pork, sweet milk, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Railroad Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine sugar, raisins, flour, cream of tartar, chopped pork, and sweet milk in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a small amount of water, add it to the mixture, and mix well until combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for two 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release carbon dioxide gas, which lifts and lightens it.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda, helping the batter rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter forms a mixable mass.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist and tender.
Chopped pork
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding savory body and a moist texture.

The step that matters

Dissolving and mixing the baking soda. Baking soda starts reacting with the acid as soon as it is wet. Mix it in thoroughly and promptly so the gas is spread evenly through the batter before it sets, rather than leaving pockets or dense spots.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, cream, pork, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream, pork, milk. 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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