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Beefsteak Pudding

A traditional British pudding made with beef, suet, flour, and water, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the chopped suet with the flour and salt in a bowl, rubbing it together until fine.

  2. Gradually add cold water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Roll the dough into a large, even sheet.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Season the beefsteak pieces with salt and pepper, and add chopped onions if desired.

  2. Place the dough sheet in a pudding cloth in a large bowl.

  3. Add the seasoned meat and cold water to the cloth.

  4. Dredge the cloth with flour.

  5. Tie the cloth securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell.

Boil

  1. Boil a large pot of water.

  2. Place the pudding in the boiling water, covering closely.

  3. Boil for 6 to 7 hours, replenishing with boiling water as needed.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts during long boiling, enriching the dough and keeping it moist and tender.
Fine flour
Forms the dough that wraps and holds the meat and its juices together.
Beefsteak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful during the long, slow boil.
Cold water
Brings the dough to a stiff consistency that holds its shape during boiling.

The step that matters

Leaving space for the pudding to swell. The dough and filling expand as they heat and gelatinize, so the cloth must be tied loosely enough to avoid bursting or squeezing out the contents.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper. 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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