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Beef-steak Pudding

A savory pudding made by encasing sliced beef in suet or butter and boiling for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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.

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices.

  2. Beat the slices with a rolling pin.

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

  4. Roll up each steak.

Assemble and boil

  1. Rub the basin with butter.

  2. Lay the paste in the basin.

  3. Place the steaks inside.

  4. Wet the edges of the paste.

  5. Fold it over the steaks tightly.

  6. Dip a pudding cloth in hot water. Wring it out. Shake it. Dust it with flour.

  7. Tie the cloth over the rim of the basin.

  8. Place it in boiling water.

  9. 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, tender paste that encloses the beef and adds fat for flavour.
Tender beef
Provides the main filling, cooking through in the steam and boiling water.
Flour
Dusts the cloth so it does not stick to the paste during boiling.

The step that matters

Folding the paste tightly over the steaks. Wetting the edges and sealing them tightly keeps the pudding closed, so water cannot enter and the filling stays moist and juicy while it boils.

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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