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Beefsteak Pudding , One for Each Person

A pudding made by encasing a beef and kidney mixture in pudding paste, boiled and served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding , One for Each Person

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease and line as many large dariole molds as there are diners with the pudding paste.

  2. Dice the fillet of beef and kidneys into small pieces.

  3. Season the meat with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with chopped parsley and chives.

Make the filling

  1. Fry the mixture in butter for five minutes.

  2. Add one pint of brown sauce or Espagnole sauce and let it stew for fifteen minutes.

  3. Fill each dariole with the meat mixture and some sauce, then cover with pudding paste.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie each pudding securely in a buttered cloth and boil for one hour.

  2. Remove the cloth and turn the puddings out onto a serving dish, pouring any remaining sauce over them.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Pepper + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Provides the main meat and savoury body of the filling.
Kidneys
Adds a rich, strong flavour and chewy texture to the filling.
Pudding paste
Forms the tender wrapper that encloses the filling as it steams.
Brown sauce or espagnole sauce
Adds moisture and a deep savoury flavour that soaks into the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the meat brown when fried.

The step that matters

Tie each pudding securely in a buttered cloth. A loose cloth lets water into the pudding during boiling, making the paste soggy and diluting the filling. A snug, buttered cloth also keeps the paste from sticking as it steams.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, pepper, parsley, sauce):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, pepper, parsley, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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