Why it works: Milk and bread 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 ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Soak the bread crumbs in boiling milk.
In a bowl, mix the soaked bread crumbs, minced suet, raisins, salt, orange rind, and 2 egg yolks.
Boil the pudding for 2 hours.
Serve
Serve with a very sweet sauce, without adding sugar.
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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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,684 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Minced suet
- Melts during boiling to give the pudding richness and a tender, moist crumb.
- Dry bread crumbs
- Soak up the hot milk and form the body that holds the pudding together.
- Stoned raisins
- Add sweetness, chewy texture and visible fruit throughout the pudding.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
- Grated orange rind
- Adds a citrus aroma that brightens the rich, heavy mixture.
The step that matters
Boil for the full 2 hours. Gentle, steady boiling for the whole time lets the suet melt and the egg and crumb set into a firm, moist pudding. Cutting the time short leaves the centre wet and loose.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, raisin, egg):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Datesfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, raisin, egg. 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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