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Mutton Pudding

A steamed pudding made with mutton, onion, flour, salt, pepper, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a pudding basin with suet paste.

  2. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  3. Mix the flour, pepper, and salt together, then roll the mutton in the flour mixture.

Assemble

  1. Layer the mutton in the pudding basin, sprinkling with chopped onion between layers until full.

  2. Half fill the basin with cold water.

  3. Cover with paste and then with greased paper.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3.5 hours.

  2. Turn out and serve.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, slow steaming.
Suet paste
Forms a sealed, sturdy crust that holds in moisture while the pudding steams.
Flour
Coats the meat, helping to thicken the juices into a rich gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it cooks into the meat juices.

The step that matters

Cover with paste and then with greased paper. The seal must be tight so steam and juices stay inside the basin. Greased paper lets the pudding expand as it cooks without the cover sticking or tearing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour. 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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