Why it works: Milk and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift the flour and baking powder together.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the milk.
Stir the egg and milk mixture into the flour to create a thinner batter than for griddle cakes.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a dripping pan generously coated with cold beef drippings.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Serve with roast beef.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the batter as its starch and proteins set during baking.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help the batter rise and set into a custard-like crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and liquid that turns to steam, helping the pudding puff.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise.
- Beef drippings
- Heats until smoking hot, searing the batter edges and encouraging rapid rising and browning.
The step that matters
Pour the batter into a very hot, well-greased pan. The batter must hit hot fat so its edges sear and start to set immediately. A cold pan or cold drippings lets the batter spread and sink instead of rising high.
“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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