Name: VII Rules for Milk Puddings
Ingredients: 2 oz rice, sago, or tapioca; 1 pint milk; butter or beef suet (if using skim milk)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

VII Rules for Milk Puddings

Ingredients

2 oz rice, sago, or tapioca
1 pint milk
butter or beef suet (if using skim milk)

Directions

Combine rice, sago, or tapioca with milk in a pot.
If using skim milk, add a little butter or beef suet.
Cook slowly over low heat until the starch grains swell and burst.
Add eggs when the pudding is nearly cooked.
Place the dish in a larger tin with a little water to ensure slow cooking.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).