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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A sweet pudding made from milk, vermicelli, and optional flavorings, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding base

  1. Flavour the milk with lemon, cinnamon, or vanilla and bring to a boil.

  2. Sprinkle in the vermicelli while crushing it slightly with one hand and stir to prevent lumps.

  3. Boil gently, stirring frequently, until the vermicelli is tender and thick.

  4. Pour into a bowl, sweeten to taste, and stir in a lump of butter.

  5. Once cool, add the lightly beaten eggs and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the top is brown.

  2. For added flavor, mix in brandy and cream if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and soft texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and help it firm up.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli cooks into a thick, creamy mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only once the mixture has cooled. Eggs scrambled in hot starch can curdle and turn grainy. Cooling the base first lets the eggs blend in smoothly and set evenly during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, cream. 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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