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Beef-Steak Pudding

A boiled pudding made of suet or butter, tender beef, onion, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef-Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Make a paste with suet or butter.

  2. Roll the paste out to line a quart basin.

  3. Rub the basin with butter.

  4. Lay the paste in the basin.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut thin slices of tender beef.

  2. Beat the beef slices with a rolling pin.

  3. Season the beef with pepper, coarse sea salt, and minced onion.

  4. Roll up each steak.

  5. Add the steaks.

Cover and boil

  1. Wet the edges of the paste.

  2. Fold the paste over closely.

  3. Dip a pudding cloth in hot water. Wring the cloth out. Dust the cloth with flour.

  4. Tie the cloth over the basin rim.

  5. Place the basin in boiling water.

  6. Boil 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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Suet or butter
Forms the rich paste that encloses the filling and adds fat for tenderness.
Tender beef
Provides the main filling; thin slices cook through and become tender during long boiling.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and moisture to the beef filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours. The basin must stay submerged in steadily boiling water for the full time, because the long gentle cooking is what tenderizes the beef and sets the paste. Water that drops below a boil lengthens cooking and can leave the filling tough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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