Name: Fig Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound suet; 1 pound figs, chopped; 1 pound bread crumbs; ½ pound sugar; 1 egg; 1 nutmeg, grated; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup flour; Milk, enough to moisten

Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Grease a tin mold well.
In a bowl, combine suet, figs, bread crumbs, sugar, egg, nutmeg, baking soda, and flour.
Add milk to moisten the mixture.

Cook and serve

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for three hours.
Serve with wine sauce.

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.

Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together510 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,026 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together374 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Provides bulk and soaks up moisture to give the pudding its body.
Figs: Add sweetness, moisture and fruity flavor throughout the pudding.
Egg: Binds the mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Flour: Adds structure that helps the pudding set as it steams.
Baking soda: Reacts to lighten the texture and help the pudding rise.

Swap the fig

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figthe original
Lemonfits less well

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