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Pickled Pork and Pease Pudding

A savory pudding made from pickled pork and split peas, cooked with butter, eggs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pickled Pork and Pease Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Soak the pork in cold water overnight.

  2. Wash and scrape the pork clean.

  3. Boil the pork in a pot, skimming frequently, until tender.

Make the pease pudding

  1. Soak the split peas overnight in cold water.

  2. Tie the split peas in a cloth, leaving room to swell.

  3. Boil the peas slowly until tender.

  4. Drain the peas and rub them through a sieve into a deep dish.

  5. Season the pea mixture with pepper and salt.

  6. Mix in the butter and beaten eggs until well combined.

  7. Dip a clean cloth in hot water.

  8. Sprinkle the cloth with flour.

  9. Place the pea mixture in the center of the cloth.

  10. Tie the cloth tightly, leaving a small space for swelling.

  11. Boil for an additional hour.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding sliced around the pickled pork.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pork + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

  4. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dried split peas
Form the bulk of the pudding, setting into a firm, sliceable body when cooked and sieved.
Eggs
Bind the pea mixture so the pudding holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the pea mixture.
Pickled pork
Provides salty, savoury flavour that the plain pudding is served alongside.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly, leaving a small space for swelling. Split peas swell considerably as they cook. A cloth tied too tightly can burst, while one left too loose lets the pudding spread and lose its shape.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, egg, pepper, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, egg, pepper, flour. 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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