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Bream Pudding

A steamed pudding made from bream fillets, suet, flour, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bream Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust and filling

  1. Skin and fillet the fish, then cut into small pieces.

  2. Make a dry crust with the suet and flour, and line a pudding basin with it.

  3. Lay the fish pieces in lightly and season with parsley, pepper, and salt.

Add the butter and seal

  1. Pour the melted butter over the fish.

  2. To make the melted butter, combine 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, and ⅓ cup water.

  3. Cover the top of the pudding with the crust, tie down securely with a cloth and string.

Boil and serve

  1. Plunge into plenty of boiling water and boil for one and a half hours.

  2. Turn out of the basin and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Suet
Forms the dry crust and adds richness as it melts into the pastry.
Flour
Provides structure for the dry crust and thickens the butter and water mixture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture that coat the fish and keep it from drying out.
Bream
Forms the main filling, cooking gently in the steam inside the crust.

The step that matters

Securing the cloth and crust before boiling. A loose cover lets boiling water seep into the basin and soak the filling. A firm tie keeps the pudding sealed so it steams evenly and stays moist.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, flour. 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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