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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A baked or steamed pudding made with vermicelli, milk, eggs, sugar, raisins, marmalade, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the vermicelli.

  2. Let it soak for 10 minutes.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs and stir in all the ingredients.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-greased pie dish.

Bake or steam

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes or steam for 1 hour.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Vermicelli
Absorbs the hot milk and softens into the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the pudding into a firm custard.
Milk
Provides moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
Marmalade
Adds sweetness and a bright citrus flavour.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake or steam until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so overbaking or overcooking makes the custard rubbery and can cause watery separation. Remove the pudding once the centre is just firm.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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