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Kidney Pudding

A boiled pudding made from beef kidney, suet, potatoes, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Trim the kidney, split it, and soak in salt water for 15-20 minutes.

  2. Remove from water, then add suet, chopped beef, and chopped potatoes.

  3. Chop the mixture finely.

Assemble and cook

  1. Make a short biscuit dough and roll it out thick.

  2. Add the seasoned meat and potatoes to the dough and roll it up.

  3. Tie the roll in a cloth and drop it into boiling water, ensuring it is well covered.

  4. Cook for 2 to 2.5 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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef kidney
Provides the main meat flavor and a firm, chewy texture in the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during long cooking.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, softening into the filling and absorbing some of the juices.

The step that matters

Tying the roll in a cloth. The cloth must be tied snugly and the roll fully submerged in boiling water. Any exposed dough can dry out or cook unevenly, and the water must stay at a steady boil to cook the pudding through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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