Name: Rye Pudding
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons rye meal; 1 pint cold milk or cream; ¼ teaspoon salt; 3 or 4 eggs

Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Rye Pudding

Ingredients

3 tablespoons rye meal
1 pint cold milk or cream
¼ teaspoon salt
3 or 4 eggs

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine rye meal, cold milk or cream, salt, and eggs, then mix well until smooth.

Cook

Pour the mixture into a bowl that has been wet with cream.
Boil for 1 hour.

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.

Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rye + eggtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together484 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye meal: Supplies the grain base and flavor, and its starch helps thicken the batter.
Eggs: Set when heated, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Milk or cream: Provides moisture and richness, and sets with the eggs for a tender texture.

“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.