Name: English Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup raisins; ½ cup chopped pork; 3 cups flour; ¼ cup butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup molasses

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

In a large bowl, combine sour milk, raisins, chopped pork, flour, butter, baking soda, and molasses.
Mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for three hours.
Serve with Sour Sauce.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Flour and butter 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

Sour milk: Acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce carbon dioxide for rising.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

“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.