Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
White Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, mix the finely chopped beef suet and flour until well combined.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Cook
Place the mixture into sausage skins or tie it in strong cloth, leaving room for expansion.
Boil in water for about 1 hour, or until tender when pricked with a fork.
Cut off a portion.
If in skins, broil it; if in cloth, turn it into a pie pan and heat it until hot.
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.
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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
- Beef suet
- Provides fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Flour
- Binds the suet and gives the pudding its body so it holds together when sliced.
The step that matters
Leaving room for expansion when filling the skins or cloth. Flour and fat swell and expand as they heat in water. If the casing is packed too tightly, it can burst or split during boiling.
“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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