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Beef-Steak Pudding

A steamed pudding made with beef steak, oysters, suet, flour, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef-Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Chop the suet finely.

  2. Rub the chopped suet into the flour with your hands, adding a little salt.

  3. Mix the flour and suet with water to form a smooth paste.

  4. Roll the paste to ⅛ inch thick.

  5. Line a quart pudding basin with the rolled paste.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the steak into thin slices.

  2. Flour the sliced steak.

  3. Season the flour‑coated steak with pepper and salt.

  4. Put the oysters and their liquor into a saucepan.

  5. Bring the oysters and liquor to a boil.

  6. Strain the boiled liquor into the pudding basin.

  7. Remove the beards and hard parts from the oysters, leaving only the soft parts.

  8. Roll the sliced steak.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the basin with the rolled steak and the oysters.

  2. Pour in the stock and the strained liquor from the oysters.

  3. Cover the pudding and steam or boil it 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten-based structure of the paste that holds the pudding together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and moist as it cooks.
Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy as it steams.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the filling and its cooking liquor.
Stock
Supplies liquid that moistens the filling and builds savoury depth.

The step that matters

Steaming the covered pudding. A steady, gentle steam cooks the steak through while keeping the suet crust tender. Vigorous boiling can force water into the sealed pudding and make the crust soggy.

“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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