Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓
Black Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the grits in water for 30 minutes, then drain and place in a large pan.
Kill the hog and save 2 quarts of blood, stirring it until cold.
Mix the blood with the grits and season with salt, cloves, mace, and nutmeg.
Add chopped winter savory, sweet marjoram, thyme, and pennyroyal to taste.
Dice the hog's leaf.
Stuff and cook
Clean the hog's gut.
Tie one end of the gut.
Fill the gut with the mixture, adding hog fat as you fill it.
Tie the other end of the gut.
Prick the filled gut with a pin.
Place the gut in a kettle of boiling water and boil gently for 1 hour.
Remove the gut from the water.
Lay the gut on clean straw.
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.
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Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
-
Winter savory + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together780 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Winter savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together455 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Nutmeg + winter savorytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together406 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grits
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the blood to give it a firm, sliceable body.
- Hog's blood
- Sets when cooked and binds the grits into a dense, cohesive mass.
- Hog fat
- Adds moisture and richness so the pudding does not dry out during cooking.
The step that matters
Prick the filled gut with a pin. Air and steam trapped inside the casing can make it swell and burst while boiling. Small pricks let gas escape so the casing stays intact as the blood sets.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, nutmeg, winter savory, marjoram, thyme):
- Allspicefits better
- Sagefits better
- Rosemaryfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against clove, nutmeg, winter savory, marjoram, thyme. 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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