Name: Baked Beef-steak Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups boiled potatoes, mashed; 2 beef steaks, prepared and seasoned; Salt and pepper to taste; Butter for greasing the dish

Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Beef-steak Pudding

Ingredients

2 cups boiled potatoes, mashed
2 beef steaks, prepared and seasoned
Salt and pepper to taste
Butter for greasing the dish

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Spread a little mashed potato at the bottom of a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

Place the seasoned steaks on top of the mashed potatoes.
Pour the remaining mashed potatoes over the steaks.
Bake in the oven until golden brown.

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.

Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes: Form a soft, moist layer under and over the steaks that later browns on top.
Beef steaks: Provide the savory meat flavor and fat that the dish is built around.

The step that matters

Covering the steaks with mashed potato. The potato must fully cover the steaks so the meat stays moist in the oven while the top browns. Gaps leave meat exposed to dry heat, which can toughen and dry the surface.

Swap the potato

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

Potatothe original
Onionfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Tomatofits less well

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

Potato Croquettes255 recipes

Roast Beef211 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

Corned Beef87 recipes

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Baked Beef-steak Pudding