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Dessert

Rennet Pudding

A milk pudding set with rennet wine, sugar, rose water, and garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rose and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Rennet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Warm the milk slightly to remove the chill; in summer, it may not need warming.

  2. Stir in the sugar, rose water, and rennet wine gently for no more than a minute.

  3. Let it stand undisturbed until it curdles.

Chill and serve

  1. Once curdled, place it gently in the ice chest and grate nutmeg on top.

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. Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rose + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together438 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and sets into a soft curd when rennet acts on it.
Rennet wine
Contains rennet, which causes the milk to coagulate into a set custard-like curd.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the milk and rose water.

The step that matters

Stirring in the rennet wine. Stirring gently for no more than a minute keeps the milk from being over-agitated, so the curd can set smoothly and evenly rather than breaking up.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, rose, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, rose, wine. 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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