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Dessert

White Hog Puddings

A sweet rice pudding made with beef marrow or suet, currants, almonds, eggs, sugar, spices, cream, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

White Hog Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash the rice and boil it in milk until tender.

  2. Chop the beef marrow or suet finely.

  3. Wash and dry the currants.

  4. Blanch the almonds and beat them in a mortar with a little rose water.

  5. Beat the eggs with salt and sugar until well combined.

  6. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and cream to the egg mixture.

  7. Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

Fill and cook

  1. Soak the skins in rose water, then fill them three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Boil the filled skins for a few minutes, then prick them to prevent bursting.

  3. Return them to the boiling water and cook until done.

Cool and serve

  1. Cool the puddings in straw and keep them dry.

  2. Broil the puddings before serving with cold butter or wine sauce.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set when cooked.
Rice
Adds body and bulk, giving the filling a soft, tender texture.
Beef marrow or suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Sweet almonds
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds to its browning when broiled.

The step that matters

Prick the filled skins after brief boiling. Heating expands the air and filling inside the skins, so pricking releases pressure and prevents the casings from bursting open during cooking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, almond, egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, almond, egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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