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Dessert

Oatmeal Pudding

A pudding made from soaked oatmeal, suet, eggs, currants, raisins, and sugar, boiled and served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the oatmeal in boiled milk overnight.

  2. In the morning, mix the soaked oatmeal with shredded suet, grated nutmeg, salt, and beaten eggs.

  3. Add currants, raisins, and sugar, stirring well to combine.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 2 hours.

  2. Once done, turn it out onto a dish and pour melted butter over it.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it hold together as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist as it boils.
Whole oatmeal
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up milk to become soft and thick.
Milk
Softens the oatmeal and adds moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the mixture in a cloth. The cloth must be tied firmly but with room for the pudding to expand. Too loose lets water in and the pudding turns soggy; too tight restricts swelling and makes it dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, sugar, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, sugar, butter. 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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