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Black Puddings

A blood sausage made with pig's blood, groats, fat, bread crumbs, herbs, and spices, cooked in pig guts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Catch the blood from the pig and stir in 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart to prevent curdling.

  2. Simmer the groats in water until tender.

  3. Strain the blood and mix in the fat, groats, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, sage, thyme, and green onions or leeks.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the largest gut of the pig with the mixture, tying it in lengths of 8 or 9 inches.

  2. Place the filled guts in boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes, pricking them to release air.

  3. Fry the black puddings like other sausages.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Pig's blood
Sets when cooked and forms the dark, firm body of the pudding.
Groats
Add bulk and a chewy, starchy texture that holds the filling together.
Inside fat
Adds moisture and richness so the pudding stays tender rather than dry.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the filling into a cohesive mass.
Sage
Contributes an aromatic, savoury herbal flavour.

The step that matters

Pricking the filled guts before simmering. Air trapped inside the casing expands with heat and can burst the skins. Pricking lets it escape, keeping the puddings intact while they cook through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, sage, thyme. 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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