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Herb Pudding or Pie

A baked dish of boiled and chopped herbs mixed with a flour‑egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herb Pudding or Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash the herbs well and boil them for 3–4 minutes.

  2. Drain the water, chop the herbs finely, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Spread the herbs in a buttered dish.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Make a batter by mixing 5 tablespoons of flour, a pinch of salt, 2 eggs, and enough milk to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  2. Pour the batter over the herbs and stir well.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350 °F (175 °C) until set.

  4. Optionally, line the edges of the dish with pastry before baking.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Lettuce + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Lettuce + boragetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds the chopped herbs in a body.
Milk
Loosens the batter to a thick cream consistency and adds moisture.
Parsley leaves
Provide the main green flavour and bulk of the herb mass.

The step that matters

Drain the herbs after boiling. Excess water left on the boiled herbs dilutes the batter and stops it setting properly, leaving a wet, loose pudding.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, mustard, lettuce, borage, chive, flour, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, mustard, lettuce, borage, chive, flour, 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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