Name: Lemon Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb suet; 1 lb bread crumbs; ½ lb granulated sugar; 2 eggs; juice of 3 lemons; grated rind of 2 lemons

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Melt the suet and mix it with the bread crumbs and sugar.
Add the eggs, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind, and stir well.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Cook and serve

Boil for 1 hour.
Serve warm.

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.

Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,445 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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: Melted fat that makes the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Provides the body of the pudding and soaks up the melted fat and liquids.
Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp lemon flavour.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Lemon juice: Adds bright acidity and the main lemon flavour.
Grated lemon rind: Adds concentrated lemon aroma from the oils in the peel.