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Somersetshire Frumenty

A sweetened wheat pudding made with boiled wheat, milk, currants, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Somersetshire Frumenty

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the frumenty

  1. Gradually add 2 quarts of new milk to 1 quart of ready-boiled wheat, breaking up any jelly.

  2. Stir in 4 ounces of cleaned currants and boil until done.

  3. Beat 3 egg yolks with a little nutmeg and 2-3 tablespoons of milk.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the wheat and stir over the heat.

  5. Sweeten to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve cold in a deep dish; some prefer it warm.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together359 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ready-boiled wheat
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving it a soft, porridge-like body.
New milk
Cooks with the wheat to make a thick, creamy liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat, giving it a rich, smooth texture.
Currants
Add chewy sweetness and fruity flavour as they plump while boiling.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks in over the heat. Egg yolks set when heated, so they can curdle into lumps if the mixture boils hard or they are added too fast. Stirring steadily while heating gently keeps the custard-like texture smooth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, milk, egg, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, milk, egg, nutmeg, sugar. 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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