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 ↓
Plain Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare a saucepan of boiling water.
Grease a basin.
Make the batter
Shred the suet, removing all skin, and chop it until it resembles bread crumbs.
Mix the suet with the flour.
Sprinkle in the baking soda and salt while rubbing out lumps.
Add enough milk and water to create a stiff batter.
Steam and serve
Pour the batter into the greased basin.
Cover with greased paper.
Steam for 2 hours.
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).
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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the mixture to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
- Milk and water
- Hydrate the flour to form a stiff batter that sets when steamed.
The step that matters
Rubbing out lumps while adding the baking soda and salt. Lumps of baking soda left in the flour can leave bitter pockets and uneven rising, so the dry ingredients should be well distributed before liquid is added.
“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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