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Black Puddings

A blood sausage made with pig blood, grits, herbs, and pig fat, stuffed in pig intestines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Black Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the blood and grits

  1. Add a little coarse sea salt to the warm blood and stir until it cools.

  2. Boil the half grits in milk until tender.

Make the filling

  1. When the grits are nearly cold, mix in the minced pig fat.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, cloves, mace, and the minced herbs.

  3. Add enough blood to achieve a dark color.

Prepare the casings

  1. Thoroughly wash the intestines.

  2. Soak the intestines in salt water overnight.

  3. Tie one end of the intestines.

  4. Turn the intestines inside out.

  5. Fill the intestines halfway with the mixture.

  6. Tie the intestines at equal lengths or in rounds.

Cook and dry

  1. Place the intestines in hot water and boil for five minutes.

  2. Remove the intestines and prick them with a large needle.

  3. Boil the intestines for an additional 30 minutes.

  4. Once cooled, hang the intestines in a cool, dry place.

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. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Winter savory + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig blood
Sets the filling as it cooks and gives the pudding its dark color.
Half grits
Provides the bulk and body of the filling as it cooks tender in milk.
Pig fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling from drying out as it cooks.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and savory flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Pricking the intestines before the final boil. Pricking releases steam trapped under the casing, so it does not burst while the filling expands and cooks.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, leek, nutmeg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, parsley, marjoram, winter savory, leek, 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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