Make Black Pudding From Scratch

Introduction & method

The idea of making a kind of sausage using congealed pigs blood is one that is fairly widespread throughout the world. The French have their boudin noir, the Spanish their morcilla and the Brits their black pudding, or blood pudding.

Prep the Ingredients

The oats and barley need to be soaked in water overnight. And unless you like chewy barley you might want to cook it in simmering water for 30 minutes or so. The weights given for oats and barley are after they've been soaked/cooked.
Pork back fat is the best - usually cut from pork chops. But you can also use fat from pork belly and/or bacon. Cut the pork fat into tiny cubes, about 5mm (a quarter of an inch). If any of your fat has come from pork belly, make sure you cut off any rind. Sweat the fat in simmering water for 2-3 minutes, then drain it. Peel and chop the onion into small dice and gently fry in bacon fat or oil for 5 minutes, just to soften without them turning brown. Hydrate the blood by mixing 1 part powdered blood with 4-5 parts cold water (or whatever your supplier recommends). Make up your spice/seasoning mix in a small glass jar.

Make the Black Pudding

Drain the oats and add them to the blood in a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients and stir well.

Tray-Baked Black Pudding

This is usually seen made by artisan producers and traditional butchers. Pre-heat your oven to 150°C (302°F) if it's a fan oven, 170°C (338°F) if not. Pour the mixture into an ovenproof dish. Cut a piece of aluminium foil large enough to cover the dish. Oil one side of the foil, and wrap it tightly over the dish. Place the dish inside another, larger ovenproof container such as a roasting tin, and fill the gap between the two with boiling water to form a bain marie. Put the bain marie in the oven and bake it for 1 hour - 90 minutes until the pudding is firm to the touch.

Black Pudding Sausages

Commercial black puddings are usually about 7cm / 3 inches diameter and made in a plastic casing - you can usually get these wherever you get your dried blood from. But you also see smaller sausages about the size of a normal pork sausage. With a big casing, one end will be closed off with a metal clip. Spoon the mixture in and tie the open end shut with twine. With smaller casings, tie a knot in one end and thread the casing onto a funnel. You can't really use a sausage stuffer for this because the mixture is too runny and the cubes of fat would be destroyed and gunk up your mincer/stuffer. So, spoon the mixture into the funnel and shove it down with the end of a wooden spoon or a skewer if it gets stuck. Tie off the open end, and divide into links by twisting the casing or by tying with string.

The sausages need to be cooked in hot water at 77°C (170°F) for 30-45 minutes until they are firm to the touch. A sous-vide device is ideal for this, but you'd be wise to put your sausages in a sealed bag in case they burst.

Serve the Black Pudding

Although the black pudding is cooked already, it's best to finish it off by fairly brief cooking in a frying pan - don't fry it too much.

The video above is from the Keef Cooks YouTube channel. Click here to see the video recipe of Make Black Pudding From Scratch on YouTube.

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Ingredients & Info

500 ml dried pigs blood

450 grams pork back fat

200 grams oats

200 grams pearl barley

1 large onion

2-3 tbsp seasoning mix

3 tbsp breadcrumbs or rusk

PLUS

You can adjust the seasoning mix to suit your own tastes, but this is the one I've been using: 2 parts salt, 2 parts white pepper, 1 part each allspice and fennel seeds. Use 25 grams of seasoning for every 450 grams of mixture - 1 ounce per pound. Or a bit more if you like.

Prep time: 15 minutes.
Cooking time: 1 hour.
Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes.

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