Why it works: Thyme and marjoram 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 ↓
White Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the oatmeal and pack it tightly in a small bowl, covering it with a cloth for 5 hours.
Scrape the oatmeal into a powder and mix it with the chopped suet, onions, and seasonings.
Cook the sausages
Form the mixture into sausages and boil them for 1 hour.
Prick the sausages while cooking to allow steam to escape, preventing them from bursting.
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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Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,171 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,056 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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White pepper + marjoramtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together134 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
- Oatmeal
- Bulks and binds the filling, soaking up fat and moisture so it holds together when sliced.
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that softens and melts during cooking, giving the filling richness and a moist texture.
- Onions
- Add moisture and savory aroma to the filling.
The step that matters
Prick the sausages while they cook. Water in the filling turns to steam as it heats. If the steam cannot escape, pressure builds inside the casing and can split it. Pricking lets the steam out gradually, keeping the sausages intact.
“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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