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Veal Pudding

A steamed pudding made with veal, bacon, thyme, and gravy, wrapped in suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal into small collops, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Melt the butter in a clean frying pan over low heat.

  3. Add the veal, bacon, thyme, pepper, and salt to the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes.

  4. Add warm water and bring to a boil.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and boil

  1. Line a pudding dish with the suet crust.

  2. Place the veal and bacon in the dish.

  3. Pour the gravy over it.

  4. Roll out a piece of crust for the lid and press it onto the dish.

  5. Tie it with a pudding cloth.

  6. Place the dish in a saucepan of boiling water. Boil for about 1 hour.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the meat filling and becomes tender during the long, gentle cooking.
Suet crust
Lines and seals the dish, holding in the filling and gravy while it steams.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the veal brown lightly in the pan.
Bacon
Contributes savoury fat and salty flavour that seasons the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before assembling. Adding the filling to the crust while it is still hot can soften the pastry and make the crust soggy or tear it. Cooling firms the mixture and keeps the crust intact during steaming.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, pepper. 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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