Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Grate the suet and combine it with the eggs and milk in a bowl.
Add enough flour to create a thick batter and mix well.
Do not chop the suet too small.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Boil for 2 hours.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Melts during boiling to add richness and a moist, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help give the pudding structure as it sets.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
The step that matters
Grating the suet rather than chopping it small. Suet should be grated, not chopped finely, so it stays in distinct pieces that melt slowly during cooking. Chopping it too small can make the pudding dense and greasy rather than light and tender.
“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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