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Dessert

A Rkii Plum Pudding

A rich plum pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, almonds, brandy, eggs, and flour, boiled or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Rkii Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, beef suet, pounded almonds, and pounded candied peels.

  2. Add salt, nutmeg, sugar, and flour, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the brandy and beaten eggs, then add enough cream or milk to achieve a thick consistency.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 5 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter or bake in a mold instead of 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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during cooking.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet and fruit.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 5 hours. The cloth must be tied firmly so the pudding keeps its shape, and the water must keep simmering for the full time so the batter cooks through evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, almond, orange, lemon, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, orange, lemon, nutmeg, 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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