Name: Flour and Suet Paste for Meat Puddings
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup finely chopped suet; 4 large eggs; 1 cup milk

Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Flour and Suet Paste for Meat Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

In a bowl, mix the flour and salt together.
Add the chopped suet and combine until a stiff paste forms.
If using less suet, add 4 eggs and enough milk to make a thick paste.

Finish

This dough can be baked or boiled.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the paste together.
Suet: Adds fat that makes the paste rich and tender as it cooks.
Eggs: Bind the paste and help it set firm when cooked.
Milk: Adds moisture so the dough becomes a workable, thick paste.

“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.