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Meat Pudding

A boiled pudding made with cornmeal, raisins, olives, and dry peppers, filled with sliced brisket.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Meat Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the brisket until done.

  2. Remove the bone and slice the meat.

Make the pepper sauce

  1. Remove seeds and veins from the dry peppers. Wash the peppers.

  2. Cover the peppers with cold water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  3. Let cool and drain.

  4. Pound the soaked peppers with a potato masher for about 10 minutes.

  5. Add one-third of the reserved boiling water to the peppers and stir well.

  6. Strain through a colander.

Assemble and boil the pudding

  1. Mix the cornmeal, butter, baking powder, raisins, olives, and salt in a bowl to form a stiff batter.

  2. Spread the batter on a pudding cloth.

  3. Place the meat in the center.

  4. Reserve some pepper sauce for serving.

  5. Tie the cloth securely.

  6. Boil the pudding in the meat's cooking liquid.

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. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket
Provides the main meat filling and its savory flavour and texture.
Cornmeal
Forms the stiff batter that wraps the meat and sets as the pudding cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cornmeal pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the cornmeal batter.
Dry peppers
Soaked and puréed to make the sauce served with the pudding, adding heat and flavour.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose, water can enter during boiling and make the pudding soggy, and the batter may spread out of shape. A snug, well-sealed wrap holds the batter around the meat so it cooks as a firm, intact pudding.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, butter, olive):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, butter, olive. 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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