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Orn Pudding

A stew of lean beef, potatoes, onions, and dumplings thickened with flour and seasoned with thyme, marjoram, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Orn Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into pieces 1 inch wide by 2 inches long.

  2. Slice the parboiled potatoes and onions.

Cook

  1. Layer the meat in a pot, followed by a layer of potatoes, then onions.

  2. Season each layer with pepper and salt.

  3. Add water if desired, then cover and cook until done.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main protein and meaty body of the stew.
Potatoes
Add starch that softens during cooking and helps thicken the stew.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, smoother gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, flour, thyme, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, flour, thyme, marjoram, pepper. 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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