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Suet Pudding or Dumplings

A suet-based pudding or dumplings made with flour, suet, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, and optional currants or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Suet Pudding or Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped suet, flour, bread crumbs, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk.

  3. Gradually add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring well.

  4. Divide the mixture into six portions and shape into dumplings.

Wrap and boil

  1. Dust a cloth lightly with flour.

  2. Tie each dumpling separately.

  3. Boil for one hour.

Add extras and boil

  1. Add one more egg.

  2. Add a little more milk.

  3. Add two ounces of suet.

  4. Boil in a mold for two hours.

  5. Add washed currants.

  6. Add a little sugar, then boil.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and add structure as they set during boiling.
Flour
Provides the main structure so the dumplings hold their shape.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings rich and tender as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and lighten the texture of the dumplings.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form a soft dough.

The step that matters

Tie each dumpling separately. A loose or poorly sealed cloth lets water soak in, so the dumpling turns soggy and can fall apart. Dusting the cloth with flour helps it release cleanly and keeps the surface from sticking.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, egg, milk, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, egg, milk, 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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