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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A sweet milk pudding made with vermicelli, lemon peel, cinnamon, sugar, and eggs, cooked by boiling and steaming or baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk base

  1. Boil the milk with lemon peel and cinnamon.

  2. Sweeten with loaf sugar and strain through a sieve.

  3. Add the vermicelli and boil for 10 minutes.

Set the pudding

  1. Mix in the egg yolks and egg whites until well combined.

  2. Steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes or bake for 30 minutes.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy moisture that the pudding sets from.
Eggs
Egg proteins set as the pudding cooks, giving it structure and a firm, custardy texture.
Vermicelli
Softens as it boils, absorbing liquid and adding body and bulk to the pudding.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Steaming or baking the custard gently. Egg proteins set as they heat, so high heat or overcooking makes the pudding curdle, turn grainy, or form holes. Gentle, steady heat lets it set evenly into a smooth, tender texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, sugar, egg. 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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