Name: English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ¾ pound currants; ½ pound raisins, chopped fine; ½ pound beef suet, chopped fine; 2 tablespoons sugar; 12 eggs, well beaten; ½ nutmeg or other spice; crumbs from the soft part of 1 brick loaf of baker's bread, made very fine

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

¾ pound currants
½ pound raisins, chopped fine
½ pound beef suet, chopped fine
2 tablespoons sugar
12 eggs, well beaten
½ nutmeg or other spice
crumbs from the soft part of 1 brick loaf of baker's bread, made very fine

Directions

Mix

In a large bowl, mix the beaten eggs and chopped suet together.
Add the currants, chopped raisins, sugar, spice, and bread crumbs to the mixture. Combine all ingredients well.

Cook and serve

Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold and boil for 4½ hours.
Serve with wine 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.

Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Soak up moisture and give the pudding a softer, sturdier body.
Currants: Add sweetness and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

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

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, egg, nutmeg, bread. 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.