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Black Puddings

A blood sausage made with half grits, pig fat, herbs, and spices, encased in pig skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Add a little salt to the warm blood and stir until it cools.

  2. Boil the half grits in milk until tender.

  3. When nearly cold, mix in the pig fat.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, cloves, and mace.

  5. Add the minced herbs to the mixture.

  6. Add enough blood to achieve a dark color.

Prepare the casings

  1. Wash the skins thoroughly.

  2. Soak them in saltwater overnight.

  3. Tie one end of the skins.

  4. Turn them inside out.

  5. Fill them halfway.

  6. Tie the filled skins into equal lengths or rounds.

Cook and hang

  1. Place them in hot water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from water.

  4. Prick with a large needle.

  5. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  6. Once cooled, hang in a cool, dry place.

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. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Clove + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Winter savory + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together70 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

What each ingredient does

Half grits
Provides the bulk and starchy body that holds the filling together as it cooks.
Blood (in the method)
Sets the filling as it cooks and gives it a dark color.
Pig fat
Adds moisture and richness so the filling stays tender rather than dry.
Milk
Softens the grits as they simmer and adds moisture and mild sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the skins only halfway. The grits swell as they cook, so an overfilled casing has no room to expand and can burst during boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper, clove, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, leek):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, clove, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, leek. 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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