Skip to main content
Main

Steak Pudding

A boiled pudding made with flour, beef suet, sliced steak, oysters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mix flour and chopped beef suet in a bowl.

  2. Make a well in the center, add salt, and enough water to form a stiff paste. Use more flour to prevent sticking.

Line and fill the basin

  1. Butter the interior of a round-bottomed pudding basin.

  2. Roll out two-thirds of the paste to ½ inch thick and line the basin.

  3. Season the sliced steak with salt, pepper, and a little flour.

  4. Place the seasoned steak in the lined basin, adding any remaining seasoning.

  5. Add the oysters and pour ½ cup of water over the filling.

  6. Moisten the edges of the paste.

  7. Roll out the remaining paste to form a lid and press it down onto the edges.

  8. Tie the basin in a pudding cloth.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the basin in a saucepan with about 1 gallon of boiling water.

  2. Boil continuously for nearly 2 hours, adding boiling water as needed.

  3. Check for doneness by inserting a skewer into the pudding; if the meat feels tender, it is done. If not, continue boiling.

  4. Carefully turn the pudding onto a dish, lift the basin, and serve.

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).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the stiff paste that encloses the filling and holds its shape while steaming.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the paste rich and moist as it steams.
Rump or beef steak
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender through long, gentle boiling.
Oysters
Adds a briny, savoury flavour to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Boiling continuously for nearly 2 hours. The water must stay at a steady boil and be topped up, because a drop in temperature slows the breakdown of meat connective tissue. Testing with a skewer confirms the meat is tender before serving.

“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 steak pudding recipes

Beef 24 See all 31 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes