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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A boiled pudding made with suet, figs, bread crumbs, sugar, egg, nutmeg, baking soda, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a tin mold well.

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine suet, chopped figs, bread crumbs, sugar, egg, grated nutmeg, baking soda, and flour.

  2. Add enough milk to moisten the mixture.

  3. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for three hours.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Figs
Provide the main fruit flavor and sweetness, plus soft pieces throughout.
Bread crumbs
Give body and absorb moisture so the pudding holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it sets firm when cooked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to lighten its texture slightly.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for three hours. The cloth must be tied firmly so the pudding keeps its shape, and the water must keep boiling for the full time so the pudding cooks through and sets.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, nutmeg, milk, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, nutmeg, milk, flour. 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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