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Dessert

Marrow Pudding

A pudding made with raisins, beef marrow, eggs, flour, sugar, and salt, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Marrow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and stone the raisins.

  2. Chop the beef marrow into large pieces.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs until smooth, then add the salt, flour, and sugar.

Assemble and cook

  1. Mix the egg mixture with the raisins and beef marrow using a wooden spoon.

  2. Grease a basin or mold with butter and pour in the mixture.

  3. Tie a cloth tightly over the basin or mold.

  4. Boil gently for 4 hours.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable body as they cook.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and moisture, melting into the pudding as it cooks.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
All-purpose flour
Lightly thickens the egg mixture so it holds together rather than weeping.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly over the basin. A loose cover lets water seep in during the long boil, diluting the pudding and making it soggy. A snug cloth keeps the steam working on the mixture and holds its shape.

“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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