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, to Serve with Roast Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Chop the suet very finely, removing any skin.
Mix the suet well with the flour.
Add the salt and pepper, and combine with milk or water to form a smooth paste.
Cook
Tie the pudding in a floured cloth or place it in a buttered basin.
Boil for 2 to 3 hours.
For a richer pudding, substitute 3 beaten eggs for some of the milk or water and increase the suet.
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 + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Milk
- Moistens the flour and suet into a smooth paste that cooks through.
The step that matters
Combine the suet and flour into a smooth paste. Suet must be chopped very finely and mixed well with the flour so the fat is evenly distributed. Unevenly mixed fat leaves greasy pockets and dry patches in the cooked pudding.
“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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