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Irish Black Pudding

A blood sausage made with rose water, almonds, bread crumbs, suet, currants, spices, cream, eggs, brandy, and candied lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Irish Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds to a paste with the rose water.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs, minced suet, currants, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  3. Add the cream, beaten egg yolks, egg whites, brandy, and candied lemon peel.

  4. Sweeten with pounded loaf sugar and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the mixture in a cloth until set, then let it cool.

  2. Cut into thick slices.

  3. Heat in a Dutch oven or broil on a grill.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites bind the mixture and help it set when boiled.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a firm, sliceable texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving a softer, tender set.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture in a cloth until set. Boiling a egg-and-cream mixture too hard or too long can make it curdle or turn rubbery, while too little heat leaves it loose. Gentle, steady heat lets the eggs set evenly so the pudding holds its shape when sliced.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rose, almond, bread, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rose, almond, bread, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, cream. 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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