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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A sweet pudding made from vermicelli, milk, butter, eggs, brandy, nutmeg, sugar, lemon peel, and sweetmeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard base

  1. Combine vermicelli and milk in a pot; heat until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted.

  3. Once cooled, add beaten and strained eggs, brandy, nutmeg, sugar, lemon peel, and sweetmeat.

Bake

  1. Line the edge of your baking dish with crust.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli
Thickens the milk as it heats and gives the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only once the mixture has cooled. Beaten eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard. Straining the eggs first also helps remove any lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, brandy, 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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