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Yorkshire Black Puddings

A savory sausage made from stale bread, oatmeal, blood, suet, herbs, and pork fat, traditionally boiled in skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Yorkshire Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Crumble stale bread.

  2. Pour boiling milk over it to cover. Let it absorb the milk.

  3. Soak coarse oatmeal. Boil it in enough milk to cover for 30 minutes.

  4. Mix soaked bread with oatmeal.

Make the mixture

  1. Add blood, cream, suet, parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, pennyroyal, leek, onion, salt, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice. Mix ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Add beaten eggs.

Stuff and cook

  1. Prepare cleaned skins. Half fill skins with mixture, adding diced fat.

  2. Tie skins in links. Prick them with a fork.

  3. Boil for about 1 hour. Let them cool.

  4. Hang in a cool place until needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Broil lightly over a clear fire. Serve on a napkin.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding its bulk and a firm, grainy texture.
Blood
Sets when heated, binding the mixture and giving the pudding its dark colour and body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture as they set, holding the filling together when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Stale bread
Soaks up milk to form a soft panada that lightens the filling and adds moisture.
Pig fat
Melts during cooking, leaving pockets of richness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for about 1 hour. Filling the skins only half full leaves room for the oatmeal and bread to swell. Pricking the skins lets steam escape so they do not burst, and the gentle simmer sets the blood and eggs without toughening the pudding.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, cream, parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, cream, parsley, thyme, marjoram, 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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