Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Steak and Kidney Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the basin
Make a dry crust using flour, suet, and butter as directed elsewhere.
Grease a pudding basin with dripping.
Roll out two-thirds of the crust and line the basin, pressing it in well.
Slice the steak and kidneys, season with pepper and salt, and pile lightly in the basin.
Pour in ½ cup of water and wet the edge of the crust.
Cover and boil
Roll out the remaining crust and cover the pudding securely.
Dip a cloth in boiling water, place it over the top, tie it with string, and secure the ends.
Plunge the basin into plenty of boiling water and boil for three hours.
Serve
Remove from water, take off the cloth, turn out onto a hot dish, and serve hot.
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.
-
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Steak
- Long boiling breaks down connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and moist.
- Kidneys
- Adds a rich, savoury, meaty flavour to the filling.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the crust.
- Suet
- Fat that keeps the crust tender and light.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling for the full three hours. The basin must sit in steadily boiling water so heat reaches the filling and cooks the meat through. If the water drops off the boil, the meat cooks slowly and the crust can turn heavy and soggy.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.