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Beep-steak, or Kidney and Steak Pudding

A boiled pudding made with suet, flour, kidney and steak pieces, seasoned with pepper and ketchup, wrapped in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beep-steak, or Kidney and Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Mix the suet and salt into the flour, adding enough water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Grease the inside of a pudding basin with lard or butter.

  3. Line the basin with a thin crust of the paste, leaving space at the bottom.

Fill the pudding

  1. Season the steak pieces with pepper and salt.

  2. Place a fat piece at the bottom.

  3. Layer with lean pieces.

  4. Pour in the ketchup and lukewarm water when the pudding is half full.

  5. Add the remaining seasoned steaks.

  6. Cover with the rest of the paste.

  7. Seal the edges well.

Cloth and boil

  1. Dip a clean cloth in hot water.

  2. Flour one side of the cloth.

  3. Tie the cloth over the pudding.

  4. Place the pudding in a boiling saucepan.

  5. Ensure the pudding is covered with water.

  6. Boil gently for about three hours, keeping it covered with water.

Serve

  1. Remove the pudding.

  2. Take off the cloth.

  3. Turn the pudding out onto a dish to serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the crust tender and the filling juicy.
All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff paste that structures the crust and encloses the filling.
Steaks
Provide the meat filling, which becomes tender during long gentle boiling.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that season the meat and filling.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about three hours, keeping it covered with water. Gentle simmering tenderises tough steak and cooks the crust through without toughening it. If the water drops and the pudding is exposed, the crust dries out and the filling cooks unevenly.

“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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