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Dessert

Hunters’ Pudding

A suet-based pudding with currants, raisins, lemon rind, Jamaica pepper, eggs, and brandy, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hunters’ Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, flour, currants, raisins, lemon rind, Jamaica peppers, eggs, brandy, and salt.

  2. Add just enough milk to achieve a proper consistency.

  3. For a change of flavor, add a spoonful of peach water.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a floured cloth or melon mold.

  2. Boil for 8 to 9 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet sauce.

  4. To store, keep tied in the cloth and hung up to preserve from dust.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during boiling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after boiling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for 8 to 9 hours. A long, steady boil cooks the dense mixture through evenly. Water that drops too low or boils unevenly can leave the center underdone or the pudding heavy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, lemon, pepper, egg, brandy, 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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