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 ↓
A Steak Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crust
Shred suet and mix with flour and cold water, seasoning with a little coarse sea salt to make a stiff crust.
Tie the crust in a cloth and place it in boiling water.
Fill and boil
Season the steaks with pepper and salt, then fill the crust as you would for an apple pudding.
Boil for 5 hours if large, or 3 hours if small.
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.
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and beef barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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
- Suet
- Provides fat that keeps the crust rich and tender as it cooks.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the stiff crust that holds the filling.
- Beef or mutton steaks
- Supply the meat filling that cooks slowly within the crust.
The step that matters
Boil for 5 hours if large, or 3 hours if small. The long, gentle boil is needed to cook the meat through and soften the stiff suet crust. Cutting the time short can leave the steak tough and the crust doughy.
“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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