Name: New College Puddings
Ingredients: 1 small loaf of bread, grated; 8 ounces suet, shredded; 8 ounces currants; 1 ounce citron, finely chopped; 1 ounce orange peel, finely chopped; ½ cup sugar; ½ nutmeg, grated; 3 eggs, separated; ½ pound butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

New College Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Grate the bread into crumbs.
Shred the suet and mix it with currants, citron, orange peel, sugar, and nutmeg.
Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then mix them into the mixture.
Shape the mixture into the size and shape of a goose egg.
Melt the butter and use it for cooking.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, orange, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter):

Lemonfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, orange, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.