Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pudding Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
In a bowl, combine suet or lard with flour.
Gradually add boiling water or milk until the mixture is just moistened.
Knead the mixture quickly until smooth.
Finish
For a superior paste, use half bread crumbs and half flour.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Suet or lard
- Fat that coats flour particles, giving the paste a tender, short texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the paste once moistened and kneaded.
- Boiling water or milk
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a dough.
The step that matters
Adding the liquid gradually. Adding the boiling water or milk gradually and stopping once the mixture is just moistened prevents a sticky, overworked dough. Gluten develops more with excess liquid and vigorous handling, which toughens the paste.
“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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