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Roman Pudding

A baked pudding made with onion juice, eggs, butter, and served with tomato or brown sauce, horseradish, lemon juice, and optional macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Roman Pudding

Why it works: Onion and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roman 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a mold with butter.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix onion juice and beaten eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  3. Place the mold in a pan of water and bake until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato or brown sauce, flavored with horseradish and lemon juice.

  2. Add a few bits of macaroni in the sauce if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Onion juice
Adds savory flavor to the egg base.
Tomato sauce
Provides a tangy, moist accompaniment that balances the mild, rich pudding.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce served with the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until firm. Baking the mold in a pan of water keeps the egg custard's heat gentle and even, so it sets smoothly instead of curdling, weeping or turning rubbery at the edges.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Plumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, egg, butter, tomato, sauce, horseradish. 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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