Why it works: Semolina and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 351 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Semolina Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the base
Combine semolina, ½ cup cold milk, and sugar in a saucepan and boil for 15 minutes.
Whisk eggs and the remaining milk together in a separate bowl to make a custard.
Mix the custard with the semolina mixture.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 30 minutes.
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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Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together351 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Semolina + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together316 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Semolina
- Thickens the milk into a soft, starchy base that gives the pudding its body.
- Eggs
- Add protein that sets the custard as it bakes, giving a firm but tender texture.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that gives the pudding a soft, creamy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk and eggs.
The step that matters
Boiling the semolina for the full 15 minutes. Boiling cooks the semolina grains and swells their starch so the base thickens. If the mixture is cut short, the grains stay raw and gritty, and the pudding may not set properly once the custard is added and baked.
“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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