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Mutton Steak Pudding

A boiled pudding of mutton, potatoes, parsley, onion, celery, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the mutton pieces with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then roll them in flour.

  2. Line a small pudding basin with a light suet crust.

Fill and cover

  1. Layer raw potato slices, then mutton, followed by chopped parsley, minced onion, celery, salt, black pepper, and a dust of cayenne.

  2. Pour in some weak stock before covering the pudding.

  3. Tie the basin in a cloth dipped in hot water and dredged with flour.

Cook

  1. Boil the pudding steadily for three hours.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and, once cooked, tender savoury pieces within the pudding.
Flour
Coats the mutton pieces, helping them brown and giving the juices some body.
Light suet crust
Forms the pastry casing that encloses the filling and holds its shape while it steams.
Raw potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding starch that thickens the juices and a mild, filling body.
Weak stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the filling stays juicy during the long boil.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks down into the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding steadily for three hours. Steady, gentle boiling cooks the meat and potatoes through and keeps the suet crust light. A hard, rapid boil can break the crust and let water into the basin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour, potato, parsley, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour, potato, parsley, celery. 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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