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Game Puddings

A baked or boiled pudding made with flour, milk, eggs, game, onion, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Game Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, make a batter by mixing flour, milk, eggs, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour a little batter into the bottom of a pudding dish.

  2. Place the seasoned poultry or game and shredded onion into the dish.

  3. Pour the remaining batter over the top.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

Make the dumpling and boil

  1. For a dumpling, stuff the chicken or pigeon with chopped oysters.

  2. Lay the stuffed bird on its back in the batter and place the butter on the breast.

  3. Close the batter to form a dumpling and boil in hot water for 2 hours.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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

Flour
Forms the starch structure that gives the batter its body and holds it together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set as it cooks, giving it a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the batter cooks into a tender, custard-like crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the flavor and softens the batter as it melts.

The step that matters

Closing the dumpling before boiling. The batter must be sealed fully around the stuffed bird so it holds its shape and cooks through. Gaps let hot water seep in, making the dumpling soggy and loose.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, pepper, chicken, oyster, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, pepper, chicken, oyster, butter. 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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