Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Raisin Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mix and wrap
Combine raisins, suet, sugar, flour, and salt in a bowl.
Add enough water to mix into a stiff dough.
Roll the mixture in a cloth.
Boil
Boil the wrapped pudding for three 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Absorbs the water and gives the dough enough structure to hold its shape.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding taste rich.
The step that matters
Add enough water to mix into a stiff dough. Flour thickens and sets as it absorbs liquid. Too little water leaves the mixture dry and crumbly, while too much makes a slack dough that can lose its shape in the cloth during boiling.
“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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