Name: Beef-steak, or John Bull’s Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb flour; 8 oz butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 lb well-kept rump steak, trimmed; salt and pepper to taste; cayenne to taste; cold water

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef-steak, or John Bull’s Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Line and fill the basin

Roll out a suet crust to ½ inch thick.
Line a quart basin with the crust, raising it 1½ to 2 inches above the edge.
Fill the basin with layers of seasoned rump steak and pour in cold water for gravy.

Cover and cook

Roll out a cover for the pudding, moisten the edges, and press them together.
Tie a cloth, dipped in hot water and floured, over the pudding.
Place the pudding in boiling water and cook for 3 to 5 hours, depending on size.
After cooking, pierce the crust with a fork to prevent bursting.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure of the suet crust that holds the filling.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderises the crust as it cooks.
Rump steak: Forms the main filling, becoming tender and flavourful during long steaming.
Cold water: Combines with meat juices to form the gravy inside the pudding.

The step that matters

Sealing the cover edges. Moistened, pressed edges form a tight seal so juices and steam stay inside. A weak seal lets liquid leak into the boiling water and the filling can dry out or the crust can split.

“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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Beef-steak, or John Bull’s Pudding