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Beefsteak Dumpling

A boiled dumpling made of sliced beef, mushrooms, and catsup, wrapped in suet paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into neat slices, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the beef slices.

  3. Place a small lump of butter on each slice and roll them up tightly.

  4. Dust the rolled beef with flour.

Assemble and boil

  1. Line a basin with plain suet paste and fill it with the beef rolls.

  2. Add sliced mushrooms and a little catsup on top.

  3. Cover the meat with the remaining paste.

  4. Tie the basin with a floured cloth and boil for 3 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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Beef
Provides the main meat; its low fat content keeps the filling lean and juicy when rolled and steamed.
Butter
Melts during boiling, adding moisture and richness to the rolled beef.
Flour
Dusted on the rolls, it helps the surface stay dry and lightly thickens juices in the basin.
Plain suet paste
Forms the sealed pastry casing that holds the filling together during long boiling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling as they cook in the steam.

The step that matters

Tie the basin with a floured cloth and boil for 3 hours. The cloth must be sealed tightly so water cannot get into the pastry, and the water must keep simmering for the full time so the beef becomes tender and the suet paste cooks through.

“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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