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Black Puddings, to Make. No. 2

A blood sausage made with bruised grits, milk, herbs, pig's blood, and leaf fat, optionally with leeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black Puddings, to Make. No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bruised grits in boiling-hot milk overnight until swollen.

  2. Chop the pennyroyal, savoury, and thyme, then mix with salt, pepper, and allspice.

Fill and boil

  1. Combine the mixture with the pig's blood.

  2. Fill the cleaned skins halfway with the mixture and add leaf fat for richness.

  3. Boil the filled skins as directed.

  4. Optionally, add finely shredded leeks for improvement.

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. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bruised grits
Swell in milk to give the pudding body and a firm, sliceable structure.
Pig's blood
Sets when heated, binding the filling into a firm, cohesive texture.
Leaf fat from pig
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Hydrates the grits so they swell and soften evenly.

The step that matters

Fill the cleaned skins halfway. Filling only partway leaves room for the grits to swell and the filling to expand during cooking. Overfilling can burst the skins, so the fill level matters.

Swap the leek

The recipe marks leek as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, thyme, pepper, allspice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, thyme, pepper, allspice. 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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