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Beef-steak Pudding

A savory pudding made from sliced beef steak, kidneys, oysters, and seasoned with pepper, salt, shallot, parsley, and served with beef gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef-steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the beef until tender, then cut it into thin slices.

  2. Slice the kidneys and oysters, and combine them with the beef.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, shallot, and parsley.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the mixture for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Prepare strong beef gravy, seasoning it with mushroom ketchup.

  3. Make a hole in the pudding paste and pour the gravy inside.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty body, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Kidneys
Add a rich, savory depth and a firm, meaty texture to the filling.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor that complements the beef and kidneys.
Strong beef gravy
Adds moisture and rich beefy flavor to the filling inside the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 2 to 3 hours. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the beef and kidneys, making them tender rather than tough. Keeping the boil steady rather than violent helps the meat stay tender and the filling stay moist.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, oyster, pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, oyster, pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup. 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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