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Meat Pudding

A boiled beef pudding made with suet paste and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Meat Pudding

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. Cut the beef steak into pieces about 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 1 inch thick.

  2. In a bowl, combine the beef, salt, pepper, onion, parsley, and enough stock or water to fill the pudding.

  3. Prepare the suet paste and roll it out to ¼ inch thick.

  4. Butter a basin and line it with the rolled‑out paste, trimming the edges.

Assemble and cook

  1. Fill the lined basin with the meat mixture and cover with another piece of paste, sealing the edges.

  2. Boil the pudding in a cloth or basin for about 2 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. 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

Beef steak
Provides the meat and fat that make up the body of the filling and turn savoury as it cooks.
Suet paste
Forms the encasing crust that holds the filling and keeps it moist while it boils.
Stock or water
Supplies moisture that fills the pudding and keeps the meat tender during long cooking.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the paste edges are not sealed firmly, water can enter during boiling and make the filling soggy, and steam can escape, weakening the crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, parsley. 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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