Name: Lemon Suet Pudding
Ingredients: ¼ pound suet; ¼ pound bread crumbs; 2 eggs; juice and rind of 1 lemon

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Suet Pudding

Ingredients

¼ pound suet
¼ pound bread crumbs
2 eggs
juice and rind of 1 lemon

Directions

Make the batter

Melt the suet in a bowl.
Add the bread crumbs, eggs, lemon juice, and lemon rind, then mix well until combined.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Cover and steam for 1 hour.
Serve warm.

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.

Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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: Melted fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist and tender as it steams.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the melted fat and eggs, giving the pudding body and a soft, cake-like crumb.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set during steaming, giving it structure and richness.
Lemon rind: Adds aromatic lemon oils that give the pudding its bright flavour.