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Savory Pudding

Savory pudding made with boiled onions, bread crumbs, egg, milk, suet, sage, salt, pepper, and hot drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savory Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the boiled onions.

  2. Heat the bread crumbs and chopped onions together.

Mix

  1. Add sage, shredded suet, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix in the egg and a little milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Add hot drippings to the mixture and spread evenly in a pan.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

  3. Let it stand for a few minutes, then cut into squares and serve with gravy.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled onions
Add moisture and sweetness as they soften and blend into the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure, absorbing liquid to hold the pudding together.
Egg
Binds the mixture and sets during baking to give the pudding a firm body.
Shredded suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist as it bakes.
Hot drippings
Add fat and savory flavor, and help the surface brown in the oven.
Sage
Provides the herbal aroma that defines the flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 40 minutes.. The egg sets as the mixture bakes, so the pudding needs enough time to firm up. Underbaking leaves it wet in the centre, while overbaking dries the bread crumbs and makes it crumbly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, bread, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, egg, milk, pepper. 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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