Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Shred the suet and mix it with the flour, beaten eggs, and salt.
Add just enough milk to form a dough.
Boil and serve
Boil the mixture for four hours.
Serve sliced and broiled the next day for best flavor.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Suet
- Fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture forms a cohesive dough.
The step that matters
Add just enough milk to form a dough. Flour absorbs liquid as it hydrates, so too little milk leaves the mixture crumbly and too much makes it slack and sticky. Adding milk gradually and stopping when the dough holds together gives a workable texture.
“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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