Préparation du Pudding (Making Up the Beefsteak Pudding)

Ingredients

• Pudding paste (pâte pour le Pudding
• 1 kilo 500 beef
• Seasoning as for the Beefsteak-pie
• Butter
• Water

Instructions

1. Reserve a small part of the pudding paste to close the pudding.
2. Line a buttered round-bottomed mould, or an English pudding bowl, with the rest of the paste.
3. Cut the beef into escalopes as for the Beefsteak-pie and season it in the same way.
4. Fill the lined mould or bowl with the escalopes, arranging them in layers.
5. Moisten with water just to cover.
6. Roll out the reserved paste, lay it over the top and seal it onto the edges of the utensil.
7. Lay the middle of a buttered napkin over the pudding, turn the utensil over to tie the napkin behind the projecting rim, and knot it on top as well.
8. Cook in boiling water, or in the autoclave at 100 degrees — 3 hours if the escalopes are taken from the fillet, 4 hours if they come from another part of the beef.
9. At the moment of serving, unwrap the pudding and set the bowl on a napkin.