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Rump Steak Pudding
Cut about two pounds of tender rump steak into pieces an inch and a half square, and season these with a dessert-spoonful of salt and a tea-spoonful of pepper. Line a shallow, thick-rimmed pudding-basin, well buttered, with good suet crust half an inch thick, and leave about an inch of pastry over the edge. Lay in the steak, and add a quarter of a pint of stock, gravy, or water. Cover the meat with a circular piece of pastry, moisten the edge of the pastry that was left over, press it closely, and tie the basin rather loosely in a cloth which has been wrung out of boiling water and floured. Plunge the pudding into boiling water, and keep it boiling quickly until done enough. Either serve it in the basin, round which a napkin has been tied, or turn it carefully upon a hot dish, after allowing it to stand five minutes. If liked, a circular piece of pastry may be cut out of the top of the pudding and a slice of butter put into it to enrich the gravy. This pudding will be very much improved if half a pound of ox kidney cut up small, a dozen and a half of oysters, and six or eight larks, are put into it with the beef. Time to boil, four to five hours. Probable cost, when made with steak only, 3s. 10d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A boiled suet-crust pudding of the standard Victorian pattern: raw meat sealed in pastry and cooked for hours in its own steam. The method works as written, but a few of the details need translating and one of the optional additions can no longer legally be bought.
- LarksSkylarks and other small songbirds are protected in Britain, the EU and most of North America; they cannot be bought, shot or eaten. Leave them out. The pudding was never dependent on them, and the beef and kidney carry it perfectly well.
- The crust"Good suet crust" here means roughly 1 lb plain flour to 8 oz shredded beef suet, a teaspoon of salt and enough cold water to make a firm dough — about enough to line and lid a basin of two to three pints at the specified half-inch, though the recipe gives no basin size. Vegetable suet behaves much the same. Roll the lining as one round, drop it into the buttered basin and ease it up the sides rather than patching.
- A quarter of a pintImperial measure: 5 fl oz, about 150 ml. That is deliberately little. The meat gives up a great deal of liquid over four hours and a fuller basin will force the seal.
- The seasoningA dessert-spoonful of salt is about two level teaspoons for 2 lb of meat — heavy-handed for modern palates, especially if you also use stock. A teaspoon and a half is closer to right.
- Covering the basinThe floured cloth can be replaced by a pleated sheet of baking parchment under pleated foil, tied under the rim with string. The pleat is the point: the crust rises, and a tight cover splits it.
- Boiling versus steaming"Plunge into boiling water" means a full immersion boil, which is why the basin needs a cloth. A covered steamer, or a lidded pot with water two-thirds up the side of the basin, gives the same result with less risk of water getting in. Top up with boiling water only — cold water stalls the cooking and can crack the crust.
- TimeFour to five hours is right for a pudding of this size with raw beef inside, and it is not padding; the suet crust needs the full run to become light rather than pasty. Set a timer to check the water level hourly.
- The oystersEighteen oysters cooked for four hours will disappear entirely into the gravy, which was more or less the intention at a period when oysters were still cheap enough to use as bulk. If you want oysters as oysters, they belong in a different dish.
- ServingFive to six people, as stated. The five-minute rest before turning out matters — it lets the crust firm enough to hold. If you doubt it, serve in the basin with a napkin tied round, as the recipe's first option suggests.
- The cost3s 10d is late-Victorian shorthand for a substantial but unluxurious family dinner.
The boiled suet pudding filled with raw beef depends on a peculiarity of the technique: the crust seals the meat so that very little moisture escapes, and the beef effectively braises in its own juices with the fat of the suet melting down into it. Steak and kidney is the surviving form, but Victorian cookery books treat the filling as endlessly negotiable — oysters when they were the cheapest protein in London, mushrooms, and small birds. Lark pies and puddings were a real trade, Dunstable in Bedfordshire being the town most associated with them, and enormous numbers of birds were netted each autumn for the London market; the practice was ended by twentieth-century protection laws. The pudding rewards attention to method: get the crust thickness, the seal and the boiling water right and the same approach covers a dozen other fillings.