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Mutton Pudding

A steamed pudding made with mutton, suet crust, cabbage, potatoes, and served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Mutton Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mutton by cutting it into pieces.

  2. Make a suet crust and line a pudding basin.

Assemble

  1. Layer the mutton in the basin.

  2. Add chopped cabbage and diced potatoes on top.

  3. Cover with more suet crust and seal the edges.

Cook and serve

  1. Steam or boil the pudding for several hours until cooked through.

  2. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together361 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that the pudding is built around.
Suet crust
Forms a rich, sturdy pastry casing that holds the filling and keeps it moist while steaming.
Cabbage
Adds vegetable bulk and a mild, slightly sweet flavour to the filling.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling, soaking up the meat juices as they cook.
Boiled rice
Serves as a plain starchy accompaniment that absorbs the rich juices.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges of the crust. If the suet crust is not sealed well, steam and juices can escape or water can seep in during the long cooking, leaving the filling dry or soggy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, potato, rice):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, rice. 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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