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Leg of Pork, with Peas Pudding

A roasted leg of pork served with a mashed split pea pudding seasoned with peppercorns, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Leg of Pork, with Peas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pork

  1. Boil the salted leg of pork until well done.

Make the pea pudding

  1. In a separate pot, stew the split peas with peppercorns, salt, and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Once stewed, mash the peas in the pot with a wooden spoon.

  3. Stir in the whole eggs and egg yolk one at a time, mixing well.

  4. Add the remaining butter, a little salt, and a pinch of nutmeg, then rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Tie the mixture in a cloth to form a long pudding and boil for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, place the leg of pork on a dish, turn out the pudding, slice it, and garnish around the pork. Serve hot.

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. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the pea mixture and help it set into a firm pudding when boiled.
Split peas
Form the bulk of the pudding, thickening into a soft mash when stewed and mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the pea mixture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pea mixture through a sieve. Mashing alone leaves lumps; pressing the mixture through a fine sieve makes it smooth, so the pudding sets with an even, silky texture rather than a grainy one.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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