Name: Date Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup chopped suet; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 pound dates, chopped; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 pound English walnut meats, chopped; 2-3 cups sugar; Flour, enough to make a stiff batter

Why it works: Dates and walnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Mix the sour milk, chopped suet, baking soda, chopped dates, salt, chopped walnut meats, and sugar in the order given.
Add enough flour to make a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

Steam the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.
Serve with whipped cream or the following 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.

Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together302 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the pudding rises and turns light.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, leavening the batter.
Dates: Add natural sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy texture.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
English walnut meats: Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender, moist crumb.