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Dessert

Irish Moss or Carrigan

A sweet pudding made by boiling Irish moss in milk until it thickens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Irish Moss or Carrigan

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Soak the Irish moss in cold water for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the moss, shaking off excess water.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the moss in 1 quart of milk until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

  2. Sweeten to taste.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Irish moss + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Irish moss + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Irish moss
Seaweed that contains carrageenan, which thickens the milk and sets it into a jelly.
Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and carries the moss's gelling action.

The step that matters

Boiling the moss in milk until it thickens. Carrageenan from the moss only thickens and sets properly once it is heated in the milk, so the pudding can look thin if it is not cooked long enough. Overcooking is less of a concern, but the moss should be fully soaked and drained first so the added water does not dilute the milk.

“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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