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Lamb Pudding

A savory pudding made from cold lamb, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, and gravy, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lamb Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cold lamb finely and season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix in enough gravy to wet the lamb.

  3. Add ¼ cup of bread crumbs for every cup of lamb.

  4. Beat in the melted butter and eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Set the mold in a pan of hot water and cover.

  3. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour.

  4. Turn out and pour a little gravy over the pudding.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb gravy and add body so the pudding holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Cold lamb
Forms the main body and flavour of the pudding.

The step that matters

Setting the mold in hot water. The water bath moderates the oven heat so the eggs set gently and evenly. Cooking them too hot can make the pudding curdle, rubbery, or cracked.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, bread, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, bread, butter, egg, pepper. 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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