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Dessert

Bombay Pudding

A sweet dessert made from boiled soojee, egg yolk, flour, and thick syrup flavored with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bombay Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Half roast the soojee.

  2. Boil the roasted soojee in water until very thick.

  3. Butter a soup plate or dish.

  4. Pour the boiled soojee into the dish and let it cool and congeal.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the congealed soojee into eight or more cakes.

  2. Rub the cakes with the egg yolk and dredge with flour.

  3. Fry the cakes in ghee until they are rich brown.

  4. Arrange the cakes in a dish and pour over thick syrup flavored with lemon juice.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Soojee
Forms the thick body of the pudding as it boils and then sets when cooled.
Egg yolk
Binds the flour to the cake surfaces and helps them brown evenly in the ghee.
Flour
Forms a light crust on the cakes that crisps and browns during frying.
Ghee
Fries the cakes, giving them a rich brown surface and a nutty aroma.
Thick syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture that soaks into the fried cakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup.

The step that matters

Let the soojee cool and congeal fully before cutting. Starch in the boiled soojee sets as it cools. If the cakes are cut before it firms, they lose their shape and break apart in the ghee.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, ghee, syrup):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, ghee, syrup. 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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