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Beefsteak Pudding

A pudding made with thinly sliced beef rolled with bacon, spiced pepper, and gravy, encased in pudding paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beefsteak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat your pot of water for boiling.

  2. Cut the beef into thin slices and place a slice of bacon on each.

  3. Season with spiced pepper and roll each slice up.

Assemble and boil

  1. Line a pudding basin with the pudding paste.

  2. Layer the rolled beef collops in the basin and pour in some strong gravy.

  3. Seal the paste securely over the top.

  4. Boil 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. 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
Forms the main body of the pudding and becomes tender during long, slow boiling.
Cold cooked bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour that bastes the beef as it cooks.
Strong gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the filling stays juicy inside the paste.
Pudding paste
Encloses the filling, holding in steam and moisture while it boils.

The step that matters

Seal the paste securely over the top. A tight seal keeps steam and gravy inside the pudding while it boils. If the paste leaks, water can enter and the filling can dry out or become soggy.

“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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