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Very Good Raisin Pudding

A thick pudding made with flour, bread crumbs, beef suet, raisins, spices, eggs, and milk, boiled in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Very Good Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine flour, bread crumbs, beef suet, raisins, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and candied peel in a large bowl.

  2. Mix beaten eggs with milk until well combined, then pour the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredients.

  3. Stir until you achieve a very thick batter.

Prepare the cloth

  1. Prepare a well-floured cloth, dip it in hot water, wring it out, and shake it to remove excess water.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the pudding mixture into the cloth and tie the cloth securely.

  2. Boil in plenty of water for 4½ hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the batter a softer, lighter texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Wringing and floured cloth. A cloth that is too wet or not well floured lets the pudding stick and soak up water. Wringing it out and dusting it with flour keeps the surface clean and the pudding's shape intact during the long boil.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, beef, raisin, nutmeg, egg, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, beef, raisin, nutmeg, egg, milk. 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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