Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓
Marrow Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Rub stale bread through a wire sieve to make ½ pint of fine crumbs.
Pour 1½ pints of boiling milk over the crumbs and soak for a while.
While still hot, add ¼ pound of clarified fat, ¼ pound of raisins, sugar, and nutmeg to taste.
Beat the mixture until the fat is melted.
Stir in 4 eggs.
Pour the pudding into a buttered mold and boil for 3 hours.
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.
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Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, nutmeg, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Lemonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, nutmeg, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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