Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Shred the suet finely.
Mix the suet with the flour, salt, and beaten eggs.
Add just enough milk to form a dough.
Boil and serve
Shape the mixture into a pudding and wrap it in a cloth.
Boil for four hours.
Serve sliced, and it can be broiled the next day.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Suet
- Melts during boiling, adding richness and a tender, moist texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides starch and protein that give the pudding its body as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and help it set firm as they cook.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture comes together as a dough.
The step that matters
Add just enough milk to form a dough. Flour starch and proteins absorb liquid to form a cohesive dough. Too much milk makes the mixture slack and sticky, so it may not hold its shape when wrapped and boiled.
“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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