Skip to main content
Main

Herb Puddings

A baked vegetable pudding made from boiled parsley, spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, cress, white beet, chives, flour, cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herb Puddings

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.

Prepare the herbs

  1. Wash and boil the parsley, spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, cress, white beet, and chives together for 3 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and mash the mixture very fine.

  3. Mix in salt and pepper to taste.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream, and eggs to make a batter.

  2. Stir the batter into the mashed herbs.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a dish and cover with a good crust.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Lettuce + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Mustard + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a firm custard as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds the herbs together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green herbal flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Check that the centre is firm rather than liquid.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, lettuce, mustard, chive, pepper, flour, cream):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, lettuce, mustard, chive, pepper, flour, cream. 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.

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesCreamy Lettuce SoupCreamy Lettuce Soup8 recipes