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Dessert

Herodotus Pudding

A sweet pudding made with raisins, beef suet, bread crumbs, figs, honey, Greek wine, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and honey work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 228 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Herodotus Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the raisins, beef suet, bread crumbs, chopped figs, honey, Greek wine, and grated lemon rind in a large pot and mix well.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Fig + honeytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that melts during simmering, giving the pudding richness and a moist, soft texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the mixture so it holds together as it cooks.
Raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.
Figs
Add sweetness and soft, jammy pieces that deepen the fruity flavor.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmering for 3 hours. Long, gentle simmering softens the dried fruit and bread crumbs and lets the suet melt into the mixture. Boiling too hard or letting it dry out can scorch the bottom or leave the texture tough.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, fig, honey, wine, lemon):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, fig, honey, wine, lemon. 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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