Name: Beef-steak Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound flour; 5 ounces beef suet; 2 pounds rump or beef steak; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 dozen oysters; ½ cup stock

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 ↓

Beef-steak Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the beef suet finely and place it in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and a teaspoon of salt.
Rub the chopped suet into the flour with your hands.
Gradually add cold water to form a smooth paste.
Roll out the paste to a thickness of slightly more than ⅛ inch.
Butter a quart pudding basin and line it with the paste.
Trim the excess paste from the top of the basin.
Roll out another piece of paste for the top of the pudding.
Slice the beef steak thinly and season with pepper and salt.
Blanch the oysters in a saucepan with their liquor until just boiling.
Strain the oyster liquor into a bowl and set the oysters aside.
Remove the beards and hard parts from the oysters, keeping only the soft part.

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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,663 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,582 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).