Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Grate the yellow rind of the lemons.
Squeeze out the juice.
Boil the lemons in plenty of water, changing the water frequently, until tender.
Beat the boiled lemons in a mortar to a paste.
Make and bake the pudding
Mix in the grated bread or biscuits and the eggs.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake until set.
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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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,445 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
- Lemons
- Supply the tart flavour and fragrance, with the rind adding aroma and the boiled pulp adding body.
- Eggs
- Set when heated, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
- Bread or biscuits
- Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture holds together before baking.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Stopping when the centre just firms keeps the pudding tender, while overbaking makes the eggs tough and dry.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg):
- Datesfits better
- Pumpkinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg. 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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