Name: Leicestershire Hunting Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound chopped suet; ¾ pound currants; ¼ pound stoned and chopped raisins; 1 pound flour; 1 tumbler (1 cup) milk; ⅓ cup brandy; 4 beaten eggs; 1 cup sugar; grated lemon peel to taste

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 ↓

Leicestershire Hunting Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Mix together the suet, currants, raisins, flour, milk, brandy, beaten eggs, sugar, and grated lemon peel.
Boil the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.

Serve

Serve with wine 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).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Milk: Adds moisture and softens the flour into a batter.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to the pudding.
Currants: Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, flour, milk, brandy, egg, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, flour, milk, brandy, egg, sugar. 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.