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Beef Steak Pudding

A steamed pudding made with beef steak, potatoes, and a flour‑water batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Beef Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steak into pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Layer the beef in a pudding basin.

  3. Peel and slice the potatoes, then layer them over the beef.

  4. Make a batter with flour and water, pour it over the layers.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the basin and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 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 steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, moist steaming.
Potatoes
Form a starchy layer that softens and adds body to the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its set structure.

The step that matters

Cover the basin and steam for 2 hours. The lid traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and evenly. If the basin is uncovered or the water boils dry, the top dries out and the meat can toughen.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour. 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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