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Black Hog Puddings

A blood pudding made with hog blood, groats, fat, spices, and cream, stuffed into intestines and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black Hog Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the blood

  1. Collect the hog's blood while warm.

  2. Stir in the salt until the blood is cold.

Make the filling

  1. Simmer the groats in just enough water until tender.

  2. Strain the groats if necessary.

  3. In a bowl, combine the cold blood with the chopped fat, groats, and remaining ingredients. Mix well.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill cleaned hog intestines, tying them into 9-inch links.

  2. Boil gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Cool on clean wheat straw.

  4. Broil or bake.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  4. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hog blood
Sets into a firm, dense pudding as it cooks and binds the filling together.
Embden groats
Add body and a tender, grainy texture that bulks out the filling.
Inside fat of the hog
Adds moisture and richness so the pudding stays juicy rather than dry.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the filling hold together with a softer texture.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 20 minutes. A vigorous boil can split the links or burst the casings, and a gentle simmer lets the blood and groats set evenly without leaving the centre raw or the fat rendering out.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, thyme, pepper, cream):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, thyme, pepper, 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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