Name: Family Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound suet (or cow-heel, well boiled and chopped); plums; currants; sugar; flour; spices (to taste)

Why it works: Plum and currant work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Family Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare a pudding casket by lining it with a thin piece of cloth.
Fill the casket with the pudding mixture, ensuring it is packed tightly.
Close the lid and tie it securely with strong thread.
Boil the pudding in a large pot for the recommended time.
If not eaten the same day, reheat gently before serving.

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.

Plum + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Plum + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together777 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,313 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,077 recipes