Why it works: Flour and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
Mash the potatoes or rub them through a sieve and stir them in.
Mix in the shredded suet thoroughly with a knife.
Make a stiff paste with the water.
Boil and serve
Dip a pudding cloth into boiling water, place the pudding in the center, and tie it tightly.
Plunge into boiling water and boil steadily for two hours.
Carefully turn out of the cloth onto a hot dish and serve.
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.
-
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pudding once the paste is cooked.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender as it cooks.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff paste.
- Potatoes
- Add starch and moisture that help keep the pudding light and soft.
The step that matters
Tying the pudding in the cloth. The cloth must be dipped in boiling water and tied tightly so the pudding keeps its shape and does not absorb too much water while it boils.
“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.
More suet pudding recipes
You might also like
Deep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.