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Meat Roll Puddings

A suet crust encases seasoned meat, rolled and boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Meat Roll Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a plain suet or dripping crust, rolling it out to a thickness of ½ to ¾ inch.

  2. Season the finely divided meat with black pepper, nutmeg or ground cloves, and herbs, and add a little salt, keeping in mind that extra salt can be added to the gravy.

Assemble and cook

  1. Mix in a fried onion or mushrooms and, if desired, diced bacon for flavor.

  2. Distribute the meat mixture over the crust and roll it up tightly.

  3. Tie the rolled pudding in a cloth and boil for 2.5 to 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet or dripping
Forms the pastry crust and adds richness and tenderness through fat.
Meat
Provides the savory filling that makes up the body of the pudding.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavors the meat filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Rolling the pudding tightly. A tight roll keeps the meat filling compact and prevents gaps or loose layers. Tying it in a cloth holds the shape during boiling, so the pudding cooks evenly and stays intact.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, pepper, nutmeg. 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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