Why it works: Flour and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
A Kentish Well Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, combine the flour, beef suet, currants, and salt.
Gradually add cold water to form a firm, smooth paste.
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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Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
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Beef + curranttop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,464 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Flour and beef barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, beef):
- Raisinfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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