Name: Suet Pudding
Ingredients: ¾ pound fine shred suet; ½ pound chopped and stoned raisins; 3 tablespoons moist sugar; 3 tablespoons flour; a little nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon salt; 3 egg yolks; 2 egg whites; 1 teaspoon baking powder

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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the suet, raisins, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and salt.
Add the beaten egg yolks and egg whites to the mixture, then stir in the baking powder until well combined.

Cook

Transfer the mixture to a basin and cover.
Boil for 4 hours or steam until cooked through.

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).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 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

Suet: Provides fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Egg yolks and egg whites: Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Flour: Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape once cooked.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.