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Black Puddings

A blood sausage made with blood, grits, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, spices, and hog fat, boiled in skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter savory and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Stir the blood with salt until cold.

  2. Soak the grits in the blood overnight.

  3. Soak the bread crumbs in hot milk until softened.

Prepare the casings

  1. Wash and prepare the guts with salt and water, changing the water several times.

Make and fill the sausage

  1. Chop the herbs and spices finely and mix with the suet, eggs, and soaked bread and grits.

  2. Fill the prepared guts with the mixture, adding pieces of hog's fat at intervals.

  3. Tie the filled skins into links and boil in a large kettle, pricking them to prevent bursting.

Cool, store and serve

  1. Once boiled, lay them between clean cloths to cool and hang in the kitchen.

  2. To use, scald in water for a few minutes, wipe, and place in a Dutch oven.

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. Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Winter savory + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Blood
Binds the mixture and gives the pudding its dark colour and rich body.
Whole grits
Soaked in blood, they add bulk and a firm, slightly grainy texture.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add moisture and softness to the filling.
Beef suet
Provides fat that keeps the filling moist and tender as it cooks.
Eggs
Help bind the filling so it holds together when sliced.

The step that matters

Pricking the filled skins before boiling. Steam expands inside the casing as the filling heats, so without pricking the skins can split and release the filling into the water.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, beef, egg, winter savory, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, beef, egg, winter savory, thyme, 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.

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