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Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

A boiled pudding made with beefsteak, kidneys, suet, flour, and milk crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the rump steak into 1‑inch square pieces.

  2. Cut each kidney into 8 pieces.

Make and fill the pudding

  1. Make a crust with the suet and flour, using milk as needed.

  2. Line a dish with the crust, leaving some crust to overlap the edge.

  3. Layer the bottom with steak and kidney pieces, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  5. Pour in enough water to come within 2 inches of the top of the dish.

  6. Moisten the crust edges.

  7. Cover the pudding.

  8. Press the crusts together to seal.

  9. Flour a cloth.

  10. Tie the cloth around the pudding.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the pudding in boiling water for at least 4 hours, replenishing with hot water as needed.

  2. After boiling, cut a small hole in the top of the crust to prevent bursting.

  3. Serve in the basin or an ornamental 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Rump steak
Provides the meat and savory body of the filling as it becomes tender during long cooking.
Kidneys
Adds a rich, strongly flavored meat that deepens the savory taste of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich and tender as it steams.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust that holds the pudding together.

The step that matters

Cut a small hole in the crust after boiling. Steam builds up inside the sealed pudding as it cooks, and without a vent the pressure can split the crust open.

“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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