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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. Keep the blood warm.

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

  3. Simmer the groats in a small amount of water until tender, ensuring no gruel remains; strain if necessary.

Mix and stuff

  1. In a bowl, mix the cold blood with the chopped fat, groats, and remaining ingredients until well combined.

  2. Stuff the mixture into cleaned hog intestines, tying them into links about 9 inches long.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Cool on clean wheat straw.

  3. Serve hot, broiled or baked.

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

Blood
Sets when cooked and forms the body of the pudding.
Embden groats
Add bulk and a firm, slightly chewy texture to the filling.
Inside fat of the hog
Adds moisture and richness so the pudding stays tender when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help the filling hold together.
Cream
Adds moisture and a softer, richer texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Simmer the groats until tender. Groats left hard or wet will make the filling gritty or gruel-like. Fully cooked, drained groats bind well with the blood and give an even, sliceable texture.

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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