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Rump-Steak Pudding

A baked pudding made from sliced rump steak, optional kidney or mushrooms, suet and flour, topped with a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rump-Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the beef according to its age and quality until perfectly tender.

  2. Cut the meat into slices and place in a pie dish.

  3. Beat the cooked vegetables into a fine puree and mix with the reduced gravy.

  4. Pour the gravy mixture over the meat.

  5. If using, add the kidney or mushrooms.

Make the crust

  1. In a bowl, mix the suet and flour until flaky.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a paste.

  3. Roll out the paste very thin and fold it to the required thickness.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a thick layer around the edge and cover the pie.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat flavour and, cooked until tender, the substance of the pudding.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich and helps it turn flaky as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust once mixed with water into a paste.
Ox kidney or mushrooms
Adds savoury depth and a meaty texture to the filling when used.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water to the suet and flour. Cold water and gentle mixing keep the suet in small pieces, so the crust bakes flaky rather than tough. Overworking develops gluten in the flour, which makes the paste chewy.

“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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