Name: Marrow Pudding
Ingredients: 1 roll, grated; ½ cup boiling cream; ½ pound beef marrow, cut thin; 4 egg yolks; ⅓ cup brandy; sugar to taste; nutmeg to taste; 2 ounces citron, cut thin

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Marrow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Grate the roll into crumbs.
Pour boiling cream over the crumbs.
Cut beef marrow into thin pieces.
Beat the egg yolks well.
Mix in brandy, sugar, and nutmeg with the egg yolks.
Combine all ingredients well.

Cook and serve

Boil or bake for 45 minutes.
Before serving, stick the thinly cut citron all over the pudding.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,495 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Roll: Grated into crumbs, it soaks up the cream and gives the pudding its body.
Egg yolks: Bind the mixture and set as it cooks, giving the pudding a rich, tender structure.
Beef marrow: Adds richness and fat, which makes the pudding moist and luxurious.
Cream: Moistens the crumbs and adds richness and softness to the pudding.
Brandy: Adds aroma and flavor to the pudding.

“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.