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Savoury Oatmeal Pudding

A savory oatmeal pudding made with oatmeal, broth, egg, milk, suet, parsley, and salt, steamed and served with or without gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,389 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Savoury Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oatmeal

  1. Scald the oatmeal by pouring boiling water, chicken broth, or meat stock over it in a basin.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg and mix in the milk, minced mutton suet, chopped parsley, and salt.

  2. Combine the egg mixture with the oatmeal and stir well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered basin and steam for 1½ to 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with or without gravy.

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. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Chicken + muttontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + muttontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together814 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up liquid to give it a soft, porridge-like texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it sets into a firm, sliceable pudding when steamed.
Mutton suet
Adds fat that enriches the flavour and keeps the pudding moist.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the mixture.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steaming gently cooks the egg and starch without drying the mixture. Too much heat or too little water can make the pudding tough or dry, so the basin should be kept at a steady simmer and covered.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, milk, mutton):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, milk, mutton. 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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