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Oatmeal Pudding

A pudding made from oatmeal soaked in boiled milk, beef suet, eggs, raisins, and spices, boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the oatmeal in boiled milk overnight.

  2. The next morning, mix in the shredded beef suet.

Mix and cook

  1. Add salt, grated nutmeg, and beaten eggs.

  2. Stir in the chopped raisins and sugar to taste.

  3. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 2 hours.

  4. Serve with a simple sauce.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Absorbs the milk and forms the body of the pudding.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, giving a moist, tender texture as it melts.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 2 hours. The cloth must be tied firmly so the pudding holds its shape, and the water must keep simmering so the eggs and oatmeal set evenly through the center.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, beef, egg, raisin, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, beef, egg, raisin, sugar. 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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