Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Meat Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Cut the rump steak into pieces about ¼ inch thick.
Season the steak with salt and pepper, then dust with flour until well coated.
Place the seasoned steak in a pudding basin, adding any remaining seasoning from the dish.
Optionally, add 24 blanched oysters.
Pour ½ cup of water over the meat, moistening the edges of the paste.
Cover and boil
Roll out the remaining paste to form a lid and press it down onto the basin.
Tie the basin in a pudding cloth and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil continuously for nearly 2 hours, adding more water as needed.
Check for tenderness with a knife; if not tender, boil longer.
Serve
Carefully turn the pudding onto a dish and serve without opening it to add gravy.
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.
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Rump steak
- Provides the meat that becomes tender and rich during long, slow boiling.
- Flour
- Coats the meat so the juices thicken into a gravy-like sauce.
- Pudding paste
- Forms a sealed crust that traps steam and keeps the filling moist.
- Water
- Creates steam and extra moisture inside the sealed pudding.
The step that matters
Keeping the water boiling and the basin sealed. Steady boiling and a tight seal keep the steam hot and the meat moist. Low or uneven heat slows the breakdown of connective tissue, so the meat can stay tough.
“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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