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Steak Pudding

A boiled pastry encasing seasoned steak, sometimes with oysters and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, shredded suet, and salt.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a stiff dough, similar to pie crust.

  3. Roll out the dough to a thickness of half an inch.

Assemble and boil

  1. Place the seasoned steak on the dough, and add oysters and onion if desired.

  2. Roll the dough around the steak, tie it in a cloth, and boil for three hours.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Oyster + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough that encloses the steak.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender as it cooks.
Steak
Provides the main filling, which becomes tender during long boiling.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth firmly around the pudding. A loose or poorly sealed cloth lets water seep into the dough and filling during the long boil, making the pudding soggy and diluting its flavor.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, beef, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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