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Black Puddings

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the ingredients in water and rub with coarse sea salt, changing the water every two hours.

  2. Boil penny-royal and sweet leeks in milk, then strain over bread crumbs.

  3. Skin and cut the pig fat into small pieces and add to the mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs with nutmegs, pepper, and salt, then mix well.

  5. Fill the skins with the mixture, but do not overfill.

  6. Prick the filled skins with a pin and boil for 10-12 minutes.

  7. After boiling, place them in clean straw.

  8. Renew the fat and ensure plenty is in each pudding.

  9. Boil again in fresh water for 10 minutes, then spread in dry straw to darken.

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. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More black pudding recipes

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