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White Hog Puddings

A rice and marrow pudding with currants, almonds, and spices, boiled in milk and served with butter or wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Hog Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Wash the rice and boil it in milk until tender.

  2. Chop the beef marrow or suet finely.

  3. Wash and dry the currants.

  4. Blanch the almonds, then beat them in a mortar with a little rose water.

  5. Beat the eggs with salt and sugar until combined.

  6. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, and cream to the egg mixture.

  7. Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

Fill and cook

  1. Soak the skins in rose water, then fill them three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Boil the filled skins for a few minutes, then prick them to prevent bursting.

  3. Return them to the water and boil until fully cooked.

  4. Cool the puddings in straw and keep them dry.

Serve

  1. Broil the puddings when ready to serve.

  2. Serve with cold butter or wine sauce.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Currant + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked in milk until tender, it thickens the filling and gives it body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when cooked, holding the filling together.
Beef marrow or suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a moist, tender texture.
Sweet almonds
Ground into a paste, they add richness and a smooth, delicate texture.
Currants
Add small pockets of sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the filling.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the filling soft and rich.

The step that matters

Pricking the filled skins after the first boil. Filled skins expand as the contents heat and can burst. Pricking after the first brief boil lets steam escape, so the puddings keep their shape and filling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, almond, rose, egg, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, almond, rose, egg, sugar, 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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