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Mutton Pudding

A boiled mutton pudding with suet crust, onions, shallots, ketchup, flour, suet, eggs, milk, raisins, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Season the mutton slices with salt and pepper.

  2. Line a basin with suet-crust and place the mutton inside.

  3. Add shredded onion, shallot, and ketchup.

  4. Close the basin tightly and tie it in a cloth.

Boil the mutton

  1. Boil for sufficient time until cooked.

Make the pudding

  1. For the pudding, mix flour, suet, eggs, milk, raisins, and currants well.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes with the pot covered.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, moist cooking in the basin.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding batter and sets as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the batter as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Close the basin tightly and tie it in a cloth. The seal keeps boiling water out and steam in. If water gets into the basin, the contents become soggy and the flavour is diluted, so the cover must fit snugly before cooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, shallot, ketchup, flour, egg, milk):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, shallot, ketchup, flour, egg, milk. 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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