Name: Boiled Puddings
Ingredients: 2 pounds sirloin steak; 2-3 dozen oysters; ¼ cup kidney suet; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Oyster and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,663 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

2 pounds sirloin steak
2-3 dozen oysters
¼ cup kidney suet
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare

Tenderize the steak with a rolling pin and cut into pieces the size of two fingers.
Bare and wash the oysters in their own liquor, then strain and set aside.

Assemble

In a bowl, layer the steak pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper, and alternate with the oysters. Add small slices of veal fat if desired.
Prepare a crust using the kidney suet and fill it with the layered mixture.

Cook

Boil the pudding until cooked through.

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.

Oyster + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin steak: Provides the meaty body and chew of the filling once cooked through.
Oysters: Add a briny, savoury flavour that seasons the meat as the pudding cooks.
Kidney suet: Adds fat to the crust, making it rich and tender as it cooks.

“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.