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Pudding

A steamed chicken pudding made with egg, milk, flour, butter, parsley, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the yolk and white of the egg.

  2. Beat the yolk, then add milk, salt, pepper, butter, and parsley.

  3. Sift in the flour and beat until smooth, then add the chicken.

  4. Whip the egg white until stiff, then fold it and the baking powder into the mixture gently.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold, cover with a lid, and steam for one hour.

  2. Serve with Drawn Butter Sauce or Celery Sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets during steaming.
Egg white
Whipped until stiff, it traps air and lightens the texture of the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Egg yolk
Enriches the batter and helps bind it as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and gives a soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Stirring instead of folding deflates the whipped egg white and loses the air that lightens the pudding. Fold gently so the baking powder and air stay in the batter before steaming.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, pepper, butter, flour, chicken. 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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