Skip to main content
Main

To Make Black Puddings

A blood and suet sausage made with grits, bread crumbs, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Make 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.

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

  5. Chop the herbs and spices finely.

Fill and boil

  1. Mix the herbs, spices, beef suet, and beaten eggs with the soaked bread and grits.

  2. Fill the cleaned skins 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.

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

Serve

  1. 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
Thickens the filling and sets firm when cooked, giving the pudding its body.
Whole grits
Provides bulk and a firm, slightly grainy texture after soaking and boiling.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add moisture and keep the filling tender.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the filling so it holds together when sliced.

The step that matters

Pricking the links before boiling. Steam expands inside the filled casings as the filling heats. Pricking lets steam escape so the skins do not burst during boiling.

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.

More black pudding recipes

Irish 6French 3 See all 71 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes