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Roman Pudding

A baked meat and cheese pudding made with butter, flour, and boiled chicken, rabbit, or veal, macaroni, and double Gloucester cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Roman Pudding

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roman Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pastry

  1. Make a paste with the butter and flour, adding cold water as needed.

  2. Roll out the paste four times and line a mold.

Make the filling

  1. Cut the meats and macaroni into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Grate the cheese and mix it with the mustard, salt, and cream.

  3. Combine the meat and macaroni with the cheese mixture and fill the mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with paste, making holes at each end for steam to escape.

  2. Brush the top with egg yolk.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with ½ pint of good brown sauce around the pudding.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste, keeping it short and flaky.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the filling in the mold.
Double gloucester cheese
Melts into the filling, adding savoury flavour and a rich, binding texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the cheese mixture so the filling stays tender.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it promotes even browning of the crust during baking.
Cooked macaroni
Adds body and soft bulk to the filling, absorbing some of the cream and cheese.

The step that matters

Venting the lid before baking. Holes at each end let steam escape as the filling heats. Without them, pressure can build inside the pastry and lift or split the crust.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chicken, cheese, cream, pepper, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, cheese, cream, pepper, egg. 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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