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Beefsteak Pudding , One for Each Person

A boiled pudding made of diced beef, kidneys, parsley, chives, and brown sauce, wrapped in pudding paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding , One for Each Person

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the molds

  1. Grease the dariole molds.

  2. Line the molds with thinly rolled pudding paste.

Make the filling

  1. Dice the fillet of beef and kidneys into small pieces.

  2. Season the diced meat with salt and pepper.

  3. Sprinkle the mixture with chopped parsley and chives.

  4. Fry the mixture in butter for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the brown sauce or espagnole sauce.

  6. Let the mixture stew for 15 minutes.

Assemble and boil

  1. Fill each dariole with the beef mixture and some sauce.

  2. Cover the filling with pudding paste.

  3. Tie each pudding securely in a buttered cloth.

  4. Boil the puddings for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Remove the cloth.

  2. Turn the puddings out onto a serving dish.

  3. Pour any remaining sauce over the puddings.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Provides the main meat filling, becoming tender during frying and long simmering.
Kidneys
Add a rich, savoury flavour and firm texture to the meat filling.
Pudding paste
Forms the steamed casing that holds the filling together and gives the pudding its structure.
Brown sauce or espagnole sauce
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the filling stays juicy rather than dry.
Butter
Fat for frying the meat, adding richness and browning flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Tie each pudding securely in a buttered cloth. Steaming and boiling let water enter any gap, so a loose cloth can soak the pastry and let the filling leak. A snug, well-sealed wrap keeps the pudding moist and intact.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

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

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