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 ↓
Meat Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the meat into slices.
Season with pepper and salt.
Grease a 1½ pint basin.
Line it with rolled out suet paste.
Reserve some paste for the top.
Fill and cover
Place the meat and water in the basin.
Roll out the remaining paste for the top.
Wet the edge of the lining.
Cover it.
Press the edges together.
Flour a pudding cloth.
Wring it out in boiling water.
Tie it over the top of the basin with the corners forming a handle.
Boil and serve
Boil the pudding in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 to 4 hours.
Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish.
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.
-
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
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 steak or skirt steak
- Provides the meat, which becomes tender and savoury during the long gentle boil.
- Kidney or leg of beef
- Adds rich, meaty flavour and body to the filling.
- Suet paste
- Forms the enclosing crust, which stays tender and moist when steamed in water.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy around the meat.
The step that matters
Pressing the edges together. A tight seal keeps water out of the basin and steam and juices in. If the seam opens during boiling, the filling can become waterlogged and the crust can fall apart.
“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.
More meat pudding recipes
You might also like
Roast Beef211 recipes
Beef Loaf175 recipes
Corned Beef87 recipes
Beef Broth67 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.