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Beefsteak Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, beef, kidneys, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

Prepare the pastry

  1. In a bowl, mix suet, flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add cold water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Reserve one-third of the paste for the cover.

  4. Roll out the remaining paste to line a greased pudding basin.

Fill and cover

  1. Layer the beef slices in the basin, dusting each with flour.

  2. Add kidneys, parsley, butter, Worcestershire sauce, water, salt, and pepper.

  3. Roll out the reserved paste for the cover.

  4. Wet the edges and place it on top, sealing the edges.

  5. Dip a clean pudding cloth in boiling water, flour it, and tie it over the basin.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the basin in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 4 hours.

  2. To serve, remove the cloth, invert the basin onto a warm plate, and lift off the basin.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the crust as it steams.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that structures the crust and encloses the filling.
Beef
Provides the main meat filling that becomes tender during long gentle cooking.
Kidneys
Adds deeper savoury flavour and body to the meat filling.
Baking powder
Lightens the paste slightly so the crust is less dense.

The step that matters

Keeping the pudding at a steady boil. Long steaming needs the water kept boiling and topped up, since a drop in temperature leaves the meat tough and the suet crust heavy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

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