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Beefsteak Pudding

A steamed pudding of thin beef slices rolled in pastry with bacon, spiced pepper, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 the paste

  1. Make a smooth, pliant paste with flour and enough water.

  2. Roll out the paste to at least ½ inch thick.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Grease a basin with butter and line it with the rolled paste.

  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.

  4. Layer the collops in the pudding basin, pouring a little gravy among them.

  5. Close the paste securely over the top and tie the basin with a cloth.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding slowly 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).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the paste that encloses the filling and holds its shape while steaming.
Beef
Forms the main filling, becoming tender as it cooks slowly in steam.
Cold cooked bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the beef as it steams.
Strong gravy
Adds moisture and savour to the filling during slow steaming.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding slowly for three hours. Gentle, steady steam cooks the beef through and tenderises its connective tissue. Rapid boiling or a dry pot can toughen the meat or dry out the paste, so the water level and heat must be kept steady.

“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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