Skip to main content
Main

Scotch White Puddings

A savory pudding made of beef suet, toasted oatmeal, pepper, salt, onions, and skins, boiled and served warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch White Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the beef suet, but not too finely.

  2. Mix the suet with about one-third of its weight in toasted oatmeal.

  3. Season the mixture highly with pepper, salt, and onions.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the cleaned skins with the mixture and fasten the ends.

  2. Boil the puddings for one hour, pricking them to release air.

  3. To serve, warm them in hot water, then grill or cook on oiled paper.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Provides fat that melts during cooking, keeping the filling moist and rich.
Oatmeal
Absorbs fat and adds bulk and a toasty texture to the filling.
Finely-shredded parboiled onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Pricking the puddings before boiling. Air and steam trapped inside the skins can cause them to burst. Pricking lets trapped air escape so the puddings hold together while they cook.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes