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Plum Pudding Au Vesuve

The scarlet berries of the holly are poisonous; do not use them as garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Au Vesuve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut a hollow on top of the pudding, about the size of a wineglass.

  2. Warm the cognac in a small saucepan.

  3. Carry the cognac and pudding to the dining room.

  4. Pour the cognac into the hollow and light it with a strip of paper.

  5. Serve the pudding while it is still blazing.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Bread + carrottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Carrot + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

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

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

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, raisin, currant):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, raisin, currant. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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