Skip to main content
Main

Steak Pudding

A suet pastry pudding filled with beef steak and oysters, steamed in a basin.

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

Prepare the paste

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and chopped beef suet.

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

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

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

Fill and seal

  1. Season the beef slices with salt, pepper, and a little flour.

  2. Place the seasoned beef in the lined basin, adding oysters on top.

  3. Pour ½ cup of water over the filling and moisten the edges of the paste.

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

Steam and serve

  1. Tie the basin in a pudding cloth and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.

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

  3. Check for doneness with a skewer; if the meat is tender, it's done.

  4. Carefully turn the pudding onto a dish 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 structure of the suet crust that holds the filling together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich and tender rather than tough.
Beef steak
Becomes tender through long steaming, giving the pudding its savoury filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour that blends into the beef juices.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling steadily for the full steaming time. Steady boiling heat cooks the beef slowly until tender and sets the crust. If the water drops or stops boiling, the filling cooks unevenly and the meat stays tough, so topping up with boiling water matters.

“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.

You might also like

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