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English Boiled Beef Pudding

A boiled beef pudding made with steak, potatoes, onions, butter, and rich gravy, cooked in a crust-lined crock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

English Boiled Beef Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a rich crust and line an earthen crock or pan.

Assemble

  1. Layer the steak squares in the pan with sliced potatoes.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and onion slices.

  3. Continue layering until the pan is full, adding small squares of butter.

  4. Pour the rich gravy over the layers.

  5. Cover with a top crust and tie a heavy cotton cloth over it.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the crock in a large vessel and cover with boiling water.

  2. Boil for 5 hours.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Porterhouse steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavorful during the long, moist cooking.
Potatoes
Add starchy bulk that absorbs juices and gives the filling a soft, hearty body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the layers as it melts.
Rich crust
Encloses the filling, holding in steam and juices during boiling.
Rich gravy
Supplies liquid that keeps the filling moist and blends the layers together.

The step that matters

Covering the crock tightly with the cloth and crust. A well-sealed cover traps steam and keeps the filling moist during the long boil. A loose seal lets steam escape, which can leave the contents dry and the crust uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, milk. 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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