Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Currant Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine minced suet, bread crumbs or flour, currants, salt, and sugar.
Beat in the eggs and mix in enough milk to moisten the mixture.
Boil and serve
Tie the mixture in a cloth securely.
Boil the pudding in water for three hours.
Serve with a sweet sauce.
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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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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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Currant + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,398 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
- Bread crumbs or flour
- Provides the body that holds the pudding together.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
- Currants
- Add fruitiness and chewy pockets of sweetness throughout.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose, water can seep into the pudding and make it soggy, and the pudding may lose its shape during the long boil.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, 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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