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Semolina-pudding, Arrowroot-sauce

A semolina pudding steamed with a butter and egg yolk sauce, folded with raisins and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Semolina and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Semolina-pudding, Arrowroot-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the semolina base

  1. Boil the milk with salt and lemon peel.

  2. Gradually add semolina while stirring; cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Sweeten with sugar; it should be slightly loose.

Enrich and fold

  1. In another saucepan, mix in butter and egg yolks one at a time.

  2. Add raisins and fold in whipped egg whites gently.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter and flour a mold, then fill it with the mixture.

  2. Place the mold in a saucepan with hot water halfway up the sides.

  3. Steam for 40 minutes, then invert onto a dish.

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. Semolina + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Semolina + raisintop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Semolina
Thickens the milk into a soft, set body as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set with richness and structure.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and airy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina thickens and sets.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently and keep the pudding mixture cool enough that the whites do not collapse.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, semolina, sugar, butter, egg, raisin, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, semolina, sugar, butter, egg, raisin, 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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