Name: Porcupine Pudding
Ingredients: rich suet or plum pudding; unblanched almonds; brandy; wine sauce

Why it works: Plum and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Porcupine Pudding

Ingredients

rich suet or plum pudding
unblanched almonds
brandy
wine sauce

Directions

Boil a rich suet or plum pudding in a fluted boiler with a pipe in the center.
When ready to serve, stick the pudding full of unblanched almonds.
Place a shallow tin dish on top, fill it with brandy, and set it on fire just before serving.
Serve with wine sauce.

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 + almondtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Plum + winetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together343 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together168 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,969 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).