Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Light Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, mix the flour, shredded suet, and coarse sea salt.
Add a little milk or water to form a stiff dough.
Cook and serve
Tie the dough in a cloth.
Boil the wrapped dough for 1 to 1.5 hours.
Serve with Lyle's Golden Syrup.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,540 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,143 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Shredded suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a tender, rich texture.
The step that matters
Add a little milk or water to form a stiff dough. Adding liquid gradually lets you reach a stiff dough. Too much liquid makes the dough sticky and hard to shape, and it can cook up heavy and dense.
“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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