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Dessert

Nouille Pudding

A steamed pudding made from nouille paste, sugar, eggs, butter, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Nouille Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the noodles

  1. Roll the nouille paste out thinly and cut it into fine strips.

  2. Add the strips to rapidly boiling salted water with the butter and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the strips well.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the egg yolks and sugar together until thick and smooth.

  2. Add the candied peel, vanilla essence, and the cooled nouille strips.

  3. Fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

  2. Cover with buttered paper.

  3. Steam for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  4. Serve with a suitable sauce.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Egg whites whisked stiff and folded in give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Nouille paste
Forms the noodle strips that give the pudding its body and chewy texture.
Castor sugar
Creaming with the egg yolks sweetens the base and helps it turn thick and smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the strips from sticking; also greases the mold.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites. Over-mixing or deflating the whites removes the air that makes the pudding light. Folding gently keeps the foam intact through the steaming.

“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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