Name: Stirred -in Gooseberry Pudding
Ingredients: 6 ounces all-purpose flour; ¼ pound finely minced mutton suet; ½ teaspoon salt; 4-5 tablespoons brown sugar; 2 large eggs; ½ cup milk; 1-1½ pints gooseberries; butter for greasing

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stirred -in Gooseberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Rub the suet into the flour.
In a basin, combine the flour and suet with salt, brown sugar, eggs, and milk.
Stir in the gooseberries.

Bake and serve

Butter a pudding basin.
Pour the mixture into the basin.
Steam for about 1 hour.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Mutton suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender as it cooks.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the pudding's structure during steaming.
Gooseberries: Add tart fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavor to the 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.