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Dessert

Semolina Pudding

A steamed pudding made from semolina, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and flavored with orange or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Semolina Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the semolina and boil for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the sugar and butter until mixed.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then beat the eggs and stir them into the semolina.

  5. Add your choice of flavoring (orange or lemon).

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the pudding into a buttered mold and cover with buttered paper.

  2. Steam for one hour.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Forms the thick body of the pudding as its starch swells and sets with heat.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set firm when steamed.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the semolina swells in, giving a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the semolina while it boils. Semolina can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly, and lumps form if it is not kept moving as its starch swells.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against semolina, sugar, egg, milk, butter. 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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