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Dessert

Semolina Pudding

Semolina pudding is a steamed dessert made from semolina, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and flavored with orange or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Semolina Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the semolina and boil for five minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Stir in the sugar and butter until mixed.

  4. Let the mixture cool in the saucepan.

Finish and steam

  1. Beat the eggs and stir them into the semolina mixture, adding your chosen flavoring.

  2. Pour the pudding into a buttered mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for one hour.

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

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

  2. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Forms the thick body of the pudding as its starch swells and sets during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set into a firm, sliceable texture when steamed.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that the semolina absorbs and cooks in, giving a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and semolina.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the semolina while it boils. Semolina can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if it is not stirred constantly while boiling. Constant stirring keeps the grains suspended so they hydrate evenly and the texture stays smooth.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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