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Baked Beef, and Yorkshire Pudding

A baked beef served with a Yorkshire pudding made from eggs, milk, flour, and ammonia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Baked Beef, and Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Rub salt on the beef and place it on bars in a dripping pan.

  2. Add ½ cup of water to the pan.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs in a pan until thick.

  2. Beat the whites of 4 eggs in a separate dish until stiff.

  3. Stir in 1 pint of milk and enough flour to make a thin batter.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites without overmixing.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon of dissolved carbonate of ammonia to the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Remove the beef from the pan.

  2. Skim the fat from the gravy.

  3. Pour the batter into the pan.

  4. Return the beef to the pan.

  5. Bake until the pudding is done.

  6. Cut the pudding into squares.

  7. Serve the squares around the beef, brown side up.

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and yolks add richness, helping the pudding rise and set.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the batter body and holds the risen pudding together.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a pourable batter that bakes tender.
Carbonate of ammonia
Releases gas as it heats, adding lift to the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped, so overmixing or deflating them during folding makes the batter heavy and reduces rise. Fold gently to keep the air bubbles intact.

“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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