Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓
Plain Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine suet, flour, milk, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding basin.
Cook
Boil or steam for 2 hours.
Serve
Serve with jam or syrup.
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Solid fat that melts during cooking, making the pudding rich and tender.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form a batter-like dough.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, helping the pudding rise.
The step that matters
Boil or steam for 2 hours. The pudding must cook gently and steadily for the full time so the centre sets and the suet softens evenly. Stopping early leaves it dense and undercooked.
“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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