Name: Yorkshire Pudding, to Bake Under a Joint of Meat
Ingredients: 3 eggs; ½ cup flour; 1 quart milk; ¼ teaspoon salt; Drippings from meat

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 ↓

Yorkshire Pudding, to Bake Under a Joint of Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix together the eggs, flour, milk, and salt until smooth.
Place a flat tin pudding dish under the joint of meat in the dripping pan.
Add a little of the meat drippings to the dish before pouring in the batter.

Bake and serve

Bake until the top is brown.
Cut the pudding into square pieces.
Turn the pudding over to brown the other side.
Serve on a dish with a strainer underneath.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,703 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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: Provide structure and help the batter set as it bakes.
Flour: Forms the base structure that rises and holds the pudding's shape.
Milk: Adds moisture and liquid that turns to steam, helping the pudding rise.
Drippings from meat: Add fat and flavour, and help the pudding brown and crisp in the hot dish.

The step that matters

Heat the drippings before pouring in the batter. The batter must hit a very hot, fat-coated dish so it sizzles immediately and starts to puff. A cold or greasy-but-cool dish lets the batter sink and stay dense.

“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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Yorkshire Pudding, to Bake Under a Joint of Meat