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Beef-steak Pudding

A pudding made by encasing seasoned steak in a flour and butter paste and cooking in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef-steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, butter, and salt. Add cold water gradually to form a firm paste.

  2. Roll the paste three times and refrigerate for a short time.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Line a shallow pudding basin with the paste, leaving an inch over the edge.

  2. Fill with seasoned steak, adding optional fat and oysters if desired.

  3. Pour in cold water or gravy, then cover with more paste, sealing the edges well.

  4. Dip a cloth in boiling water, flour it, and tie it loosely over the basin.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the basin in boiling water and let it cook for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Remove from water, let it stand for a few minutes, then serve in the basin or invert onto a dish.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

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

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the paste, which holds the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste as it bakes and steams.
Rump steak
Provides the main filling, becoming tender during long gentle cooking.
Cold water or gravy
Adds moisture that steams inside the pudding, keeping the filling juicy.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges well. If the top paste is not sealed to the lining, steam and juices can escape during the long boil, and the filling may dry out or the water may seep in.

“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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