Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place a piece of beef on sticks in a baking pan.
Roast the beef
Roast the beef until nearly done, about 3/4 hour.
Make and bake the pudding
In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, flour, and salt until smooth.
Pour the pudding mixture into the pan under the beef, allowing the drippings to fall onto it.
Continue roasting until the pudding is golden and puffed.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Set the batter's structure and help it rise as steam expands in the oven.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten framework that holds the puffed walls in shape.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that, with eggs and flour, forms a thin batter that bakes up tender.
The step that matters
Pouring the batter into hot drippings. The batter needs to hit very hot fat so its moisture turns to steam quickly, driving the rapid rise and crisp, puffed edges. A cooler pan or slow start leads to a flat, dense pudding.
“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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