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French Black Puddings

A blood pudding made with grits or rice, pig's blood, spices, cream, herbs, and entrails.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pick, wash, and boil the grits or rice until three parts done, then drain it dry.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the drained grits or rice with pig's blood, coarse sea salt, ground pepper, mace, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, cream, soaked bread crumb, and chopped herbs.

  3. Mix the ingredients over low heat for 20 minutes, then let cool.

  4. Add the diced flay to the mixture and fill the cleaned entrails three parts full, tying the ends.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the puddings in hot water for 15 minutes.

  2. If eating immediately, prick them with a fork and broil on a clean grill for 10 minutes.

  3. If not eating right away, place them on clean straw, then simmer in boiling water for 10 minutes before pricking and broiling.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Grits or rice
Provides the starchy bulk that gives the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Pig's blood
Sets when heated, binding the filling and giving it its dark colour and rich flavour.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the texture of the filling.
Soaked bread crumb
Absorbs liquid and adds moisture, keeping the filling tender rather than dry.
Flay
Adds fat and pieces of richness that melt into the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Filling the entrails three parts full. Overfilling leaves no room for the grits or rice and blood mixture to expand during cooking, so the casings can burst. Underfilling leaves loose, uneven puddings that may collapse.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, pepper, clove, nutmeg, allspice, cream, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, clove, nutmeg, allspice, cream, bread. 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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