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Leg of Pork with Peas Pudding

A boiled pork leg served with a mashed split pea pudding seasoned with peppercorns, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Leg of Pork with Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pork

  1. Boil the salted leg of pork until well done.

Make the pea pudding

  1. In a separate pot, stew the split peas with peppercorns, salt, and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Once stewed, mash the peas in the pot with a wooden spoon.

  3. Stir in the whole eggs and egg yolk one at a time, mixing well.

  4. Add the remaining butter, a little more salt, and a pinch of grated nutmeg.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and tie it in a cloth to form a long pudding.

  6. Boil the pudding for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, place the leg of pork on a dish, turn out the pudding, and slice it.

  2. Garnish the pudding around the pork and serve hot.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pork + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork
Is the main meat, cooked by boiling until well done.
Split peas
Form the bulk of the pudding and set into a soft, mashable structure when stewed.
Whole eggs
Bind the mashed peas together so the pudding holds its shape when sliced.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the pudding, giving it a smoother, firmer set.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the pea mixture and improving its flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pea mixture through a fine sieve and binding it in a cloth. Sieving breaks down remaining lumps so the pudding is smooth. Tying it firmly in a cloth keeps it compact while it boils, so it holds a clean shape when turned out and sliced.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, egg, nutmeg. 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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