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Beef Pudding

A steamed beef and kidney pudding made with suet, flour, and baking powder.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Make a crust with the suet, flour, baking powder, salt, and enough cold water to form a paste.

  2. Reserve some paste to cover the top of the basin.

  3. Roll out the remaining paste.

  4. Butter a basin.

  5. Line the basin with the paste.

Fill and cover

  1. Fill the basin with pieces of beef steak and kidney.

  2. Season the filling with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour in a little water.

  4. Roll out the reserved paste to fit the basin.

  5. Wet the edges of the paste.

  6. Cover the pudding with the paste.

  7. Fold the sides of the paste inwards.

Cloth and boil

  1. Dip a cloth in boiling water. Flour the cloth.

  2. Tie the cloth securely over the pudding.

  3. Boil for two and a half 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 + 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. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Melts into the crust, making it rich and tender as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the paste structure that holds the crust together around the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the crust rise and lighten.
Beef steak and kidney
Provides the main filling, whose juices flavour the pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely over the pudding. A loose cloth lets water seep into the pudding during the long boil, making the crust soggy and the filling watery. Floured cloth also keeps the crust from sticking to it.

“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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