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Suet Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made from flour, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, baking powder, salt, and water or sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Skin, shred, and finely chop the suet.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients.

  2. Mix in enough cold water or sour milk to form a moist paste.

Cook in a cloth

  1. Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water.

  2. Wring the cloth out.

  3. Sprinkle the cloth with flour.

  4. Transfer the mixture into the cloth.

  5. Tie the cloth tightly.

  6. Boil for 2 to 4 hours.

Steam in a basin

  1. Grease a basin or mold.

  2. Fill the basin or mold with the mixture.

  3. Cover with greased kitchen paper.

  4. Place in a steamer with boiling water halfway up the basin.

  5. Keep a kettle of boiling water handy to replenish as needed.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Adds body and absorbs liquid, giving the paste a softer texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavor.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling and topped up. Steady boiling water supplies the steady heat that cooks the pudding evenly. If the water drops low or boils dry, the pudding cooks unevenly and can scorch.

“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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