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Dessert

The Portland Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, sugar, flour, raisins, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

The Portland Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the raisins and the fat or suet, mixing well.

  3. Butter a mold and pour in the pudding mixture.

Cook

  1. Tie the mold tightly in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 5 hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set the pudding as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds together rather than running apart.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture beat to a smooth texture.
Raisins
Provide chewy bursts of sweetness and body throughout the pudding.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender during long boiling.

The step that matters

Tie the mold tightly in a cloth. A loose cloth lets water seep into the mold and dilute the batter, and the pudding can swell or break free. A snug wrap keeps the pudding compact and its texture even during the long boil.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, veal, butter):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, veal, butter. 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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