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Dessert

Shropshire Pudding

A bread pudding made with stale brown bread, beef suet, sugar, lemon, eggs, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Shropshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated bread, beef suet, sugar, grated nutmeg, lemon juice, lemon rind, egg yolks, and egg whites until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold and tie it securely in a cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Plunge the mold into fast boiling water and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter sweetened and flavored with brandy, if desired.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale brown bread
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up moisture and binding the mixture.
Beef suet
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture as it melts during boiling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it as the pudding sets.
Egg whites
Lighten the mixture and help it set with a softer, airier texture.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil and serve. The mold must be fully submerged in fast boiling water for the whole 4 hours. If the water stops boiling or the cloth is not secure, the pudding can become soggy or waterlogged, and it will not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, sugar, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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