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Beefsteak Pudding or Pot-pie

A baked pot pie made with beefsteak, onions, mushroom catsup, and a crust of flour and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding or Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Pound the beefsteak until almost a pulp, then press the beef back to a proper thickness.

  2. Cut the beef into pieces 2 by 5 inches.

  3. Season the beef with salt and pepper.

  4. Dredge the beef with flour.

Assemble the pie

  1. Butter a 1-quart tin mold or use a china bowl.

  2. Make a meat-pie paste.

  3. Line the mold with the paste, letting the paste hang over the edge.

  4. Place the beef, parboiled onions, mushroom catsup, and water into the mold.

  5. Wet the edges of the paste.

  6. Cover the paste with more paste.

  7. Press the edges together tightly.

  8. Tie the mold in a clean cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil a pot of water.

  2. Place the mold in the boiling water, top side up.

  3. Boil for 4 hours.

  4. Turn the pie out of the mold.

  5. Serve.

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

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

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Beefsteak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long moist boil.
Flour
Dusting on the beef and the paste help bind the filling and thicken the juices.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the filling and crust, and keeps the mold from sticking.
Lard and butter
Fat in the crust that makes it tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Lifts the crust so it is lighter rather than dense.
Parboiled onions
Add sweetness and soft body to the filling as they cook in the juices.

The step that matters

Pressing the edges of the paste together tightly. A tight seal keeps the steam and juices inside during the four-hour boil. A loose seam lets water seep in and leaves the filling watery and bland.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, mushroom. 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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