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French Black Puddings

A blood pudding made with groats or rice, pig's blood, spices, and stuffed into cleaned 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 groats or rice until three parts done; drain and set aside.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the pig's blood with plenty of coarse sea salt, ground pepper, mace, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, cream, and soaked French bread crumb.

  3. Add chopped savory, thyme, parsley, and pennyroyal; mix over low heat for 20 minutes.

  4. When cool, mix in the diced flay.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the cleaned entrails with the mixture three parts full and tie the ends.

  2. Boil the puddings gently in hot water for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. To serve immediately, prick with a fork and broil on a clean grill for 10 minutes.

  2. If not serving right away, lay them on clean straw; when needed, simmer in boiling water for 10 minutes, then prick and broil as above.

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

Pig's blood
Sets when heated, forming the firm body of the pudding.
Groats or rice
Adds bulk and body, absorbing liquid so the filling holds together.
French bread crumb
Soaks up liquid and helps bind the mixture into a tender texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the set blood.
Flay (fat)
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the filling moist and rich.

The step that matters

Boil the puddings gently. Vigorous boiling can split the casings and push out filling, and high heat makes the blood set rough and grainy. A gentle simmer lets the mixture set evenly and stay smooth.

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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