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Beefsteak Pudding

A boiled pudding made with sliced beef, suet, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 filling

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices, about 3 inches long and wide.

  2. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate, then dip each slice in the mixture.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Roll out ¾ of the suet paste to line a greased basin, reserving ¼ for the lid.

  2. Layer the meat in the basin, sprinkling the remaining seasoning mixture between layers.

  3. Leave spaces for water to prevent the pudding from drying out.

  4. Fill the basin with boiling water to ¾ full, cover, and seal the edges.

Cook

  1. For boiling, tie a scalded and floured pudding cloth over the top; for steaming, cover with greased paper.

  2. Boil for 3½ hours or steam for 4 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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Beef steak
Forms the main filling, becoming tender through long, slow moist cooking.
Suet paste
Forms the rich crust and lid that enclose the meat and hold in moisture.
Flour
Lightly coats the beef, helping seasoning cling and slightly thickening the juices.

The step that matters

Leaving spaces for water in the basin. Without gaps between the layers, the meat can dry out during the long cooking, so the spaces let moisture and steam circulate around it.

“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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