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Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

A steamed pudding made with beef, kidneys, onions, suet, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the steak and kidneys into pieces.

  2. Mix the salt and pepper with the tablespoon of flour and dip each piece of meat in this mixture.

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, suet, and teaspoon of salt, then mix to a paste with the buttermilk.

  2. Turn the mixture out onto a floured board; cut off a piece for the cover and roll the rest out fairly thin.

Assemble and steam

  1. Line a pudding tin with the paste, then add the meat, kidneys, and chopped onion.

  2. Pour in the water and ketchup.

  3. Roll out the piece of paste for the cover and place it on top.

  4. Wet the edges of the paste in the tin to make the cover stick.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 3 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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Buttermilk + ketchuptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Self-raising flour
Forms the structure of the suet crust, rising slightly as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the crust rich and tender as it steams.
Buttermilk
Moistens the flour into a workable paste for the crust.
Steak
Provides the main meat, becoming tender during long steaming.
Kidneys
Adds deep, savoury flavour and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Wetting the edges before sealing the cover. Moist paste bonds to moist paste, so wetting the rim helps the lid seal. A poor seal lets steam escape and the filling can dry or the crust can separate during the long steam.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, buttermilk, pepper, ketchup. 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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