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Rump-steak and Oyster Sauce

A boiled pudding of layered rump steak and kidneys, bound with suet and flour, cooked in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rump-steak and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut each kidney into 8 pieces.

  2. Line a dish with a crust made from suet and flour, leaving a small piece to overlap the edge.

  3. Cover the bottom with a layer of steak and kidney, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Add another layer of steak, kidney, and seasoning, repeating until the dish is full.

  5. Pour in enough water to come within 2 inches of the top.

Seal and boil

  1. Moisten the edges of the crust.

  2. Cover the pudding.

  3. Press the crusts together to seal.

  4. Flour a cloth.

  5. Tie it around the pudding.

  6. Place it in boiling water.

  7. Boil for at least 4 hours, replenishing with hot water as needed.

Serve

  1. After boiling, cut a round piece from the top of the crust to prevent bursting.

  2. Serve in the basin or an ornamental dish.

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 + 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

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and rich during long, slow boiling.
Kidneys
Add a deep, strongly flavoured meat element to the filling.
Suet
Forms the crust's fat, keeping it tender and rich when steamed.
Flour
Gives the suet crust its structure so it holds together while boiling.

The step that matters

Cut a vent in the crust after boiling. The filling and water inside expand and build pressure during the long boil, so a vent helps prevent the crust from bursting.

“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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