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Beefsteak Pudding

A baked dish of sliced beefsteak pieces covered with a custard-like batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

  1. Cut the steak into pieces slightly more than 1 inch wide and long.

  2. Beat the pieces with a rolling pin.

  3. Season the pieces with pepper and salt.

  4. Dip each piece in a mixture of melted butter, minced parsley, and a little French mustard.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the pieces in the bottom of a greased baking dish.

  2. Pour a batter made from the eggs, flour, and milk over the steak.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  4. Serve directly from the baking dish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savory as it bakes beneath the batter.
Eggs
Set with the flour and milk to form the custardy batter that binds the pudding.
Prepared flour
Thickens the batter so it holds together rather than running off the steak.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and eggs and adds moisture, letting the batter bake soft and set.
Melted butter
Carries the parsley and mustard onto the meat and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter over the steak. The batter should be smooth and poured gently so it covers the meat evenly. Lumps or a runny batter can leave gaps or sink, so the pudding may bake unevenly and set poorly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, pepper, butter, parsley. 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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