Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓
Plum-pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine the bread crumbs and flour in a large bowl.
Add the minced suet, stoned raisins, and dried currants to the mixture.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.
Steam
Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold and cover tightly.
Steam the pudding for several hours until cooked through.
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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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,032 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Raisin + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,111 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Currant + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,398 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
- Stale bread crumbs
- Provide body and absorb fat and moisture, giving the pudding its crumbly structure.
- All-purpose flour
- Helps bind the crumbs and suet so the pudding holds together when steamed.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and a chewy texture.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and a chewy texture.
The step that matters
Steam until cooked through. Steam heats the pudding gently and evenly, so it cooks through without drying out. The mold must be covered tightly so water cannot enter and the pudding stays moist during the long steaming.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, bread, flour):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, bread, flour. 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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