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Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

A pudding made with beefsteak and kidney, layered with suet crust and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beefsteak and Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Prepare a suet crust by mixing flour, suet, egg, salt, and enough water to form a dough.

  2. Line the sides of a pudding dish with the suet crust.

Fill and cook

  1. Layer beefsteak in the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Add a layer of kidney, and repeat until the dish is full.

  3. Pour in ½ cup of water and cover with more crust.

  4. Place the dish in a bag and boil for 4 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Forms the main meaty body of the pudding and becomes tender during long cooking.
Kidney
Adds a rich, distinctive savoury flavour and firmer texture to the filling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the suet crust that holds the filling together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich, tender, and moist during steaming.
Egg
Binds the crust dough so it holds together when rolled and lined.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the meat layers as they cook.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours in a bag. The pudding must stay submerged and sealed so it steams evenly. Long, gentle cooking breaks down the meat's connective tissue, making it tender. If the water level drops or the bag leaks, the crust can dry out and the filling can toughen.

“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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