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Pork Pudding

A boiled pork pudding made with suet crust, pork slices, sausage meat, onion, sage, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a well-buttered basin with the suet crust.

  2. Layer the pork slices and sausage meat alternately, using double the weight of pork to sausage meat.

  3. Season the meat with salt, pepper, onion, sage, and add the gravy.

  4. Cover the basin securely and tie it in a floured cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Plunge it into boiling water and boil for about three hours.

  2. Carefully turn it out and serve on a hot dish.

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

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet crust
Forms a sturdy, tender casing that holds the filling together while it steams.
Pork
Provides the main meat and juices that flavour the pudding as it cooks.
Pork sausage meat
Adds fat and seasoning that keep the filling moist and rich.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Sage leaves
Contributes a fragrant, herbal aroma that complements the pork.

The step that matters

Boil and serve. The pudding must be boiled gently but steadily for the full time, since the long steam cooks the meat through and sets the suet crust; the cloth should be tied securely so water does not soak in.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, meat, pepper, sage. 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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