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Batter Pudding with Meat

A baked pudding made with a batter of flour, milk, and eggs, containing seasoned meat and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Batter Pudding with Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, milk, and eggs to create a batter.

  2. Pour a small amount of batter into the bottom of a pudding dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Season the meat with salt and pepper, then place it in the dish along with the sliced onions.

  2. Pour the remaining batter over the meat.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

  4. Add sugar if desired before serving.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure as it thickens and sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the flour into a pourable batter.
Meat
Provides the main filling, cooking through beneath the batter.
Onions
Add moisture and savory sweetness as they cook in the dish.

The step that matters

Baking until cooked through. The batter sets as eggs and flour cook, but the meat below must reach a safe internal doneness. A slow oven helps the batter set gently without drying or burning the top before the meat is cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, pepper, meat, sugar. 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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