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Beef Steak Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made with eggs, milk, flour, steak, kidney, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Steak Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, make a batter by mixing the eggs, milk, and flour until smooth.

  3. Pour a little of the batter into a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Season the steak and kidney with salt and pepper, then lay them on top of the batter.

  2. Fill the dish with the remaining batter.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour and 45 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting around the meat as it bakes.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture, helping it rise and turn tender in the oven.
Steak
Provides the main meaty filling and rich savory flavor as it cooks in the batter.
Kidney
Adds a deeper, richer beef flavor and a more intense savory taste to the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring a base layer of batter before the meat. A thin layer of batter in the dish keeps the steak and kidney from sitting directly on the hot dish and scorching, and gives the meat a cushion so the pudding bakes evenly underneath.

“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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