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Dessert

Oatmeal Pudding

A pudding made from oatmeal soaked in milk, suet, eggs, nutmeg, salt, currants, raisins, and sugar, boiled and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the oatmeal in boiled milk overnight.

  2. In the morning, mix the shredded suet with the soaked oatmeal and milk.

  3. Add nutmeg, salt, and beaten eggs.

  4. Stir in currants, raisins, and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Once done, turn it out onto a dish and pour melted butter over it.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Forms the body of the pudding and absorbs the milk as it soaks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during boiling.
Milk
Softens the oatmeal and adds moisture to the mixture.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A loose cloth lets water seep into the pudding during boiling, making it soggy and loose. A snug wrap holds the mixture together so it keeps its shape while it cooks.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, 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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