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Dessert

Italian Fig Pudding

A boiled pudding made from figs, suet, bread crumbs, nutmeg, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Italian Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped figs, suet, bread crumbs, grated nutmeg, and eggs.

  2. Add enough milk to form a stiff dough.

  3. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie it securely.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in water for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with your choice of 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.

  1. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 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

Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, jammy body to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture structure so it holds together as a dough.
Eggs
Bind the ingredients and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavor that complements the figs.

The step that matters

Form a stiff dough before tying the cloth. Bread crumbs soak up liquid over time. Too much milk makes the mixture slack and it may fall apart while boiling, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly. Tying the cloth securely keeps water out and holds the shape during the long boil.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, bread, egg, milk):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, bread, egg, milk. 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.

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