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Asparagus Pudding

A steamed pudding made with asparagus peas, eggs, ham, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Mix together the asparagus peas, eggs, minced ham, butter, flour, and enough milk to make a thick batter.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding mold.

  3. Steam for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with drawn butter.

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. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Asparagus peas
Provide the main vegetable body and bulk of the pudding.
Eggs
Set on steaming to give the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Flour
Thickens the batter and helps hold the pudding together as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the set custard.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture into a pourable thick batter.
Minced ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Eggs set through gentle, even heat. Steam that is too vigorous or uneven can make the pudding rough, bubbly or watery, and the mold must be kept covered so steam does not seep in and dilute the batter.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, egg, ham, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, egg, ham, butter, flour, milk. 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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