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Steak and Kidney Pudding

A savory pudding made with steak, kidney, flour, and dripping, boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steak and Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped steak, kidney, pepper, salt, nutmeg, flour, and a little cold water.

  2. Make a dough by rubbing the dripping into the flour with your fingertips, then mix in cold water until fairly dry.

  3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, making one side thinner.

Assemble and boil

  1. Grease a breakfast cup and line it with the thin dough, leaving some overhanging.

  2. Fill the cup with the meat mixture and add a little more water.

  3. Roll out the thicker piece of dough to cover the top, dampen the edges, and press to seal.

  4. Cover with a floured cloth, tie securely, and place in a large saucepan of boiling water.

  5. Boil for 2 hours, refilling with boiling water as needed.

Serve

  1. Remove the cloth, place on a hot dish, and serve with boiled potatoes and beans.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main meat flavour and, once simmered, a tender, savoury filling.
Ox kidney
Adds rich, deep meaty flavour and a slightly firmer texture to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure and thickens the juices around the meat.
Dripping
Adds fat that makes the dough short and tender rather than tough.

The step that matters

Boiling with the cloth tied securely. Steaming in boiling water needs a tight seal and a constant supply of hot water. If the cloth is loose or the pan boils dry, water can enter the pudding and the crust can turn soggy while the meat cooks unevenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour. 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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