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Beefsteak Pudding

A boiled pudding made with beef suet, flour, beefsteak pieces, onions, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the chopped suet and flour in a bowl, rubbing them together with your hands.

  2. Add the salt and gradually pour in cold water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Roll the dough into a large, even sheet.

Fill the pudding

  1. Place a pudding cloth in a large bowl.

  2. Arrange the dough in the pudding cloth.

  3. Season the beefsteak pieces with pepper and salt.

  4. Add the chopped onions if desired.

  5. Put the seasoned meat into the dough.

  6. Add 1 cup of cold water.

  7. Dredge the mixture with flour.

  8. Tie the cloth securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell.

Boil

  1. Boil a large pot of water.

  2. Add the pudding and cover tightly.

  3. Boil for 6 to 7 hours, replenishing with boiling water as needed.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Beef suet
Melts during long boiling, keeping the dough and filling moist and rich.
Fine flour
Forms the dough that wraps the filling and sets into a firm, cohesive casing.
Beefsteak
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell. The dough and filling expand as they heat, so a loose or fully packed cloth can burst or let water in. Room to swell keeps the pudding intact during the long boil.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper. 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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