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Beefsteak Pudding

A steamed pudding made with salt pork, round steak, butter, and a biscuit‑like crust, served with a kidney and onion gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Fry the salt pork until golden brown.

  2. Place the fried salt pork in the bottom of a quart earthen bowl.

  3. Layer the raw round steak on top of the pork.

  4. Add the butter and black pepper to the steak.

  5. Cover the bowl.

Steam the pudding

  1. Place the covered bowl in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the sides of the bowl.

  2. Put a wire rack in the pot for the bowl to rest on.

  3. Cover the pot tightly.

  4. Boil for 3 hours, replenishing water as needed.

  5. After 2 hours and 15 minutes, pour off half the gravy.

  6. Sprinkle the steak with salt.

Make the crust

  1. Prepare the crust.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped suet, flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Mix in the ice water until the dough resembles biscuit dough. Avoid overhandling the dough.

  4. Place the dough over the meat in the bowl.

  5. Leave the bowl uncovered to allow steam to reach the crust.

  6. Cover the pot tightly.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, invert the bowl onto a deep platter, meat-side down.

  2. Pour the gravy over the pudding.

  3. To make the gravy, simmer the chopped lamb kidneys, onion, and cayenne pepper in cold water for 30 minutes.

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. Pork + lambtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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. Pepper + lambtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 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

Raw round steak
Forms the main meat filling and, cooked slowly in steam, becomes tender and juicy.
Suet
Melts into the crust during steaming, giving it richness and a light, tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the crust dough together as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the crust rises and stays light.
Salt pork
Fried first to add savoury fat and flavour to the base of the pudding.
Lamb kidneys
Simmered into the gravy to add a rich, savoury depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Leave the bowl uncovered after placing the crust. Leaving the bowl uncovered lets steam rise through the dough so the crust cooks through and stays light, while the pot is covered to keep steam circulating around the bowl.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, butter, pepper, flour, lamb):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, butter, pepper, flour, lamb. 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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