Name: Stirred -in Gooseberry Pudding
Ingredients: 6 ounces all-purpose flour; ¼ pound finely minced mutton suet; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 4 to 5 tablespoons brown sugar; 2 large eggs, well beaten; ½ cup milk; 1 to 1½ pints gooseberries; Butter for greasing

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 ↓

Stirred -in Gooseberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub the flour and mutton suet together in a bowl.
Add the salt, brown sugar, beaten eggs, and milk; mix well.
Stir in the gooseberries until evenly distributed.
Butter a basin that will hold the mixture and pour it in.

Cook and serve

Boil the pudding for 2 hours.
Serve with a sauce made of melted butter, milk, and additional brown sugar.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding batter.
Mutton suet: Adds richness and a tender, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Gooseberries: Add tart fruit flavor that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.

“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.