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White Puddings

A sausage made from beef marrow, almonds, bread crumbs, currants, spices, wine, and egg yolks, boiled in pig intestines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

White Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine the beef marrow, pounded almonds, orange flower water, bread crumbs, currants, sugar, mace, cloves, cinnamon, mountain wine, and beaten egg yolks in a large bowl. Mix all ingredients well until fully combined.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the cleaned entrails of a pig three-quarters full with the mixture. Tie each end securely and boil for 30 minutes.

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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef marrow
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a soft, moist texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm when cooked.
French bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling body and a tender crumb.
Jordan almonds
Add fat and body, giving the filling a rich, slightly nutty texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the warm spices.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit through the filling.

The step that matters

Leave room when filling the casing. The filling expands and the casing can burst if it is overfilled. Filling only three-quarters full leaves space for the mixture to swell as it cooks and sets.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, almond, orange, bread, currant, sugar, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, almond, orange, bread, currant, sugar, clove. 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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