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Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made from boiled carrots, breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, and seasonings, served with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil the carrots until soft, then chop them small or rub them through a sieve.

  2. Mix in the breadcrumbs, butter, and enough eggs to bind the mixture together.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. If not using eggs, substitute with 2 tablespoons of flour and a little milk.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding basin.

  2. Pour the mixture into the basin.

  3. Steam for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size.

  4. Turn out the pudding.

  5. Serve hot with white sauce poured around it.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Carrots
Provide the bulk and moist, sweet body of the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a soft, set structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size. Gentle steaming sets the egg and crumb mixture through without drying it. Too little time leaves the centre wet and loose, while overcooking makes the pudding dense and rubbery.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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