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 ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the suet very fine.
Sift the flour with the baking soda, cream of tartar, and coarse sea salt.
Mix the raisins into the flour mixture.
Rinse a pudding bag in cold water and flour the inside to prevent sticking.
Steam and serve
Fill the bag with the mixture, leaving room for expansion, and tie it securely.
Boil water in a large pot and ensure it is boiling when you place the bag in.
Cover the pot to keep the steam in and boil for 3 hours.
When done, plunge the bag into cold water and turn it out immediately.
Serve hot with wine sauce or cream and sugar.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,964 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starch sets during steaming.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
- Syrup
- Adds sweetness and moisture while contributing to the pudding's color and flavor.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling when the bag goes in. Dropping the bag into water that is not yet boiling lets the pudding soak up water and cook unevenly. Keeping the pot covered holds in steam, which keeps the temperature steady over the 3 hours.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, syrup, flour, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinthe original
- Strawberryfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, syrup, flour, egg, cream. 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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