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Sausage and Liver Pudding

A savory pudding made from beef sausages, calf liver, kidney, bacon, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sausage and Liver Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the bacon into pieces and fry it lightly.

  2. Slice the liver and fry it in the bacon fat.

  3. Remove the liver and stir in the mixed herbs.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour in the brown stock and thicken with browned flour, then boil.

  2. Season with salt, black pepper, and a hint of ground cloves or nutmeg.

  3. Mince the kidney and add it to the gravy along with the sausages and bacon, cutting the sausages into halves.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Provides the rich, savoury flavour and soft texture that define the pudding.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty depth.
Beef sausages
Supply the meaty body and seasoned flavour of the filling.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour, and its fat is used to fry the liver.
Calf's kidney
Adds a mineral-rich, firm meatiness to the mixture.
Brown stock
Provides the liquid base that becomes the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour then boiling. Flour must be fully dispersed in the stock before boiling, or it clumps and the gravy stays lumpy and uneven. Boiling then activates the starch so the gravy thickens properly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, liver, thyme, marjoram, parsley, flour, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, liver, thyme, marjoram, parsley, flour, pepper. 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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