Name: English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups beef suet; 2 cups chopped raisins; ½ cup sugar; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground cloves; ¼ grated nutmeg; 2 cups water; flour (enough to make a stiff batter); 3 eggs, beaten

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

In a large bowl, mix together the beef suet, chopped raisins, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg, then chop the mixture finely.

Make the batter

In a separate bowl, combine the water with enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Add the beaten eggs to the batter and mix well.

Cook

Butter a pudding tin and pour in the mixture.
Boil the pudding for three hours.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender as it cooks.
Chopped raisins: Add sweetness and moisture, and give the pudding its fruity body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the warm spices.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for three hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the flour and beaten eggs through and sets the mixture into a firm, cohesive pudding. Stopping early leaves it dense or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, egg):

Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original
Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, egg. 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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English Plum Pudding