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Asparagus Pudding

A savory pudding made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, and boiled asparagus tops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Asparagus Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat a pot of boiling water.

  2. Beat together the eggs, butter, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Mix in the flour and baking powder.

  4. Add the milk and the chopped asparagus tops, stirring until combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased mold with a lid.

  2. Cook in the boiling water for 2 hours.

  3. Turn out the pudding and pour over it 1 cup of 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + asparagustop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the pudding its set structure as they cook.
All-purpose flour
Provides starch and structure so the pudding holds together when turned out.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter, giving the pudding a lighter texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it cooks evenly.
Asparagus
Supplies the main flavor and adds moisture and body to the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook in the boiling water for 2 hours. The mold must stay sealed and the water must keep boiling, otherwise the egg and flour mixture cooks unevenly and can turn watery or dense.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, 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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