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Steak Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, beef suet, steak slices, oysters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the suet crust

  1. Mix flour and chopped beef suet in a bowl.

  2. Make a well in the center and add salt and enough water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Knead the mixture, adding more flour to prevent sticking.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Butter the inside of a round-bottomed pudding basin.

  2. Roll out two-thirds of the paste to ½ inch thick and line the basin.

  3. Season the beef slices with salt, pepper, and a little flour.

  4. Place the seasoned beef slices in the basin along with any remaining seasoning and the oysters.

  5. Pour ½ cup of water over the filling.

  6. Moisten the edges of the paste, then roll out the remaining paste to form a lid and press it down to seal.

Steam and serve

  1. Tie the basin with a pudding cloth and place it in a saucepan with boiling water.

  2. Boil for nearly two hours, adding more boiling water as needed.

  3. Check for doneness by inserting a skewer into the pudding; it should feel tender. If not, boil longer.

  4. Carefully turn the pudding onto a dish and serve.

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

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

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

  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

Flour
Forms the stiff paste that wraps the filling and holds its shape while steaming.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich and tender as it cooks.
Rump or beef steak
Provides the meat filling, which becomes tender during long gentle steaming.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the beef filling.

The step that matters

Keeping the water boiling and the pudding sealed. Steaming a suet pudding for nearly two hours needs steady boiling water topped up as it evaporates, or the crust dries and the beef cooks unevenly. A tight seal keeps steam and moisture inside the basin.

“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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