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Pork Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sour milk, chopped pork, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Pork Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine molasses, sour milk, chopped pork, and baking soda.

  2. Stir in flour until the mixture is thick.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a steaming dish and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Prepare a liquid sauce and flavor it with lemon.

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. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor, keeping the pudding moist as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Flour
Provides structure, thickening the batter so it holds its shape when steamed.

The step that matters

Stir in flour until the mixture is thick. Flour sets the texture of the pudding; adding too little leaves it loose and wet, while too much makes it dense. Thickness should match the batter's intended consistency before steaming.

“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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