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Beef-steak Pudding

A pudding made with beef steak pieces, suet, flour, and ketchup, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Mix the suet and salt into the flour.

  2. Add just enough water to form a stiff paste.

Line and fill the basin

  1. Grease the inside of a pudding basin with lard or butter.

  2. Line the basin with a thin layer of the paste, leaving some space at the bottom.

  3. Season the steak pieces with pepper and salt.

  4. Place a fatty piece at the bottom, followed by lean pieces.

  5. Pour in the ketchup and lukewarm water when the basin is half full.

  6. Add the remaining seasoned steak.

  7. Cover with the rest of the paste.

  8. Seal the edges well.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie a clean, floured cloth over it.

  2. Place the pudding in a saucepan with boiling water.

  3. Ensure the pudding is covered.

  4. Boil gently for about three hours.

  5. Remove the cloth.

  6. Turn the pudding out onto a dish.

  7. Serve.

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. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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. Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms the stiff paste that wraps the filling and holds its shape while steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the paste rich and tender as it cooks.
Steaks
Provide the meat filling, which becomes tender during long gentle boiling.
Ketchup
Adds tangy sweetness and flavour to the meat juices inside the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about three hours. A gentle simmer cooks the tough steak until tender while the paste stays intact. A hard rolling boil can break the cloth and crust, and a shortage of water can let the pudding scorch or dry out.

“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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