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Dessert

Semolina Pitdding

Semolina pudding is a sweet custard made with milk, semolina, egg, sugar, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Semolina Pitdding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the semolina base

  1. In a saucepan, combine ½ quart of milk and 1 tablespoon of semolina.

  2. Heat the saucepan on the stove, stirring occasionally until it boils and thickens, then remove from heat.

Add the egg and bake

  1. In a bowl, beat 1 egg with 2 teaspoons of sugar until combined.

  2. Grease a ¾ pint pie dish with butter.

  3. Once the semolina mixture has cooled slightly, stir in the sweetened egg.

  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie dish.

  5. Grate ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg over the top.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Semolina + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina thickens as it heats.
Semolina
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding body.
Egg
Adds richness and helps set the pudding during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the sweetened egg after the semolina cools slightly. If the thickened semolina is still very hot when the egg goes in, the egg can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting it cool slightly keeps the mixture smooth before baking sets it.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, semolina, egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, semolina, egg, sugar, butter. 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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