Name: Raisin Pudding, Baked
Ingredients: 6 ounces beef suet, finely shredded; ¾ pound all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; Rind of 1 fresh lemon, finely chopped; ¾ pound stoned raisins; ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 3 large eggs; ¼ pint milk; Powdered sugar for serving

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Pudding, Baked

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.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the shredded suet, flour, salt, lemon rind, raisins, and nutmeg.
Stir in the eggs and enough milk to make a thick batter.
Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

Bake and serve

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Turn out the pudding, sift powdered sugar over it, and serve.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it bakes.
All-purpose flour: Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it sets.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, raisin, nutmeg, egg, milk, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original
Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, raisin, nutmeg, egg, milk, 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.