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Boiled Salt Pork and Pease Pudding

A boiled dish of split peas mixed with egg, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar, served with boiled salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled Salt Pork and Pease Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pork

  1. Wash the pork joint and cover it with tepid water in a pan.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, then simmer for 25 minutes per pound plus an additional 25 minutes.

  3. Place the pork on a hot dish and pour a little of the cooking liquid over it.

Make the pease pudding

  1. For the pease pudding, soak the split peas overnight in water.

  2. Tie the soaked peas loosely in a pudding cloth and boil in a pan of boiling water for 3 to 4 hours until soft.

  3. Drain the peas well and pass them through a wire sieve.

  4. Beat in the egg, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  5. Return the mixture to the cloth, tie tightly, and boil for 20 minutes.

  6. Turn out the pudding onto a dish or serve it around the pork.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pork + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Split peas
Break down into a soft, thick base that forms the body of the pudding.
Egg
Binds the sieved peas so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Pork
Provides the main meat, with its cooking liquid poured over to add moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Passing the peas through a sieve. Pushing the cooked peas through a fine sieve removes lumps and skins, giving a smooth texture. Draining them well first keeps excess water from making the pudding loose.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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