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Scotch Black Pudding

A blood sausage made with hog's blood, milk, suet, oatmeal, onion, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scotch Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Salt the hog's blood immediately after drawing it.

  2. Strain the blood and mix it with the milk.

  3. Stir in the chopped suet, dry oatmeal, pepper, salt, and minced onion until thick.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the skins with the mixture.

  2. Boil gently for about 1 hour until done.

  3. Broil when ready to serve.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Hog's blood
Forms the main body of the pudding and sets firm when cooked.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Dry oatmeal
Absorbs liquid and gives the filling body and a firmer texture.
Milk
Thins the blood so it mixes evenly with the other ingredients.
Minced onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about 1 hour until done. Boiling vigorously can split the skins and leave the filling porous or crumbly. Gentle heat lets the blood and oatmeal set evenly into a firm, sliceable texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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