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Kidney Pudding

Kidney pudding is a steamed or boiled pudding made from cow's kidney, suet crust, stock, and optional onion and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kidney Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Roll the suet crust to ½ inch thick and line a well‑greased basin with it.

  2. Remove the hard core from the kidney and wash it in vinegar and water.

  3. Cut the kidney into pieces nearly 1 inch square.

  4. Optionally, add 2 to 3 ounces of fat bacon, salt pork, or fat from a joint for better flavor.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the lined basin with the kidney pieces and pour in enough plain stock to cover.

  2. Cover with the crust and seal the edges.

  3. Steam or boil for about 1.5 to 2 hours until cooked through.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cow's kidney
Forms the meaty filling and gives the pudding its rich, savoury flavour.
Suet crust
Forms a tender, pastry-like case that holds the filling and seals in moisture while steaming.
Plain stock
Keeps the filling moist and adds savoury flavour as the kidney cooks.

The step that matters

Steam or boil until cooked through. Kidney is dense and tough if undercooked, and the crust needs sustained moist heat to set and become tender. Keeping the basin covered with liquid below the lid helps maintain steady heat for the full time.

“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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