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Dessert

Lemon Pudding, Boiled

A boiled pudding made with beef suet, bread crumbs, sugar, lemon rind, lemon juice, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Lemon Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix the shredded beef suet, bread crumbs, sugar, salt, lemon rind, lemon juice, and beaten eggs until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mold in boiling water and boil continuously for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 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

Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provides the body that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during long cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic oils that give the pudding its bright lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling continuously for the full 4 hours. Long, steady boiling keeps the mold at a constant high temperature so the suet melts and the egg and crumb mixture sets evenly. If the water drops and stops boiling, the pudding can turn heavy and unevenly cooked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, sugar, 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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