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Veal and Macaroni Pudding

A steamed pudding of veal, bacon, macaroni, and seasonings, wrapped in suet pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal and Macaroni Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a pudding basin with good suet pastry.

  2. Combine veal, bacon, and any optional ingredients in a bowl. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  3. Soak the macaroni in lukewarm water for 30 minutes.

Assemble

  1. Layer the meat mixture and macaroni in the pudding basin, sprinkling grated lemon and powdered mace between layers.

  2. Add stock or water and lemon juice to the mixture.

  3. Cover the pudding with pastry.

  4. Tie the pudding in a floured cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Plunge the pudding into boiling water.

  2. Boil quickly for about 2 hours, checking for tenderness with a skewer.

  3. Once done, carefully turn it out onto a hot dish and serve immediately.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and savoury during long boiling.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky flavour that moistens the meat and macaroni as it cooks.
Macaroni
Absorbs cooking liquid and juices, becoming soft and giving the pudding its body.
Stock or water
Supplies moisture so the layers steam and cook through without drying out.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and fat.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding. The pudding must be boiled briskly and kept submerged, with water topped up as needed. Steady boiling cooks the enclosed meat and pasta through and sets the suet pastry. Gentle heat or low water can leave the centre undercooked or the pastry soggy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, lemon. 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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