Morcilla de Burgos | Spanish Blood Pudding

Introduction & method

Most countries around the world have some kind of blood pudding. Within Spain, there are regional variations too, but the morcilla from Burgos in northern Spain is reckoned to be the best. Morcilla de Burgos is unusual in that it includes lots of onion and rice, and the fat is melted lard rather than the small dice of hard back fat. I've been to Burgos. I bought 1 kilo of artesanal morcilla. It really is the best.

Morcilla de Burgos | Spanish Blood Pudding Recipe

Prep the Rice and Onion

Top and tail, skin and finely chop the onions. Melt the lard in a frying pan on medium low heat and sauté the onions for about 5 minutes. They need to be softened but not browned. Set aside and leave to cool. Rinse the rice under plenty of cold water. Put it in a small saucepan, add 2 cups of water, bring it to the boil, turn it down to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Drain and put into a bowl of cold water until needed.

Rehydrate the Blood

Follow the manufacturers instructions for using the powdered blood - mine needed to be mixed with cold water in the ratio of 1 to 6-7 parts.

Make up the Seasoning Mix

I made a double quantity of seasoning so that the measuring would be more accurate. Add all of the ingredients listed into a small screwtop jar, shake well and use half of it for this batch. Label and keep the rest for another batch.

Mixy Mixy

Place everything except the rice into a big bowl. You need to have 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) of filling in total and you might have cooked more rice than you need. So put the bowl onto some scales and then add some of the rice to the other ingredients. Keep adding more until you get to 1kg. Now mix it all together. You'll need to use your hands for this, so get some disposable gloves unless you want orange fingernails.

Sausagise!

Prep your sausage casings according to the manufacturers instructions. They may need soaking but mine only needed a cold water rinse to remove the salt they were packed in. If your mixture is runny and your casings are wide, you may be able to spoon filling in, or use a funnel. I ended up using the sausage-making attachment on my mincer. Whichever way you do it, tie a knot in one end, fill about a metre (three feet) of casing and cut it off. Smooth the sausage out and divide the filling into links by pushing filling away to form a gap about 40-50mm (couple of inches) wide. Use some butcher's twine to tie the gap shut. This will give you some room for the filling to expand. Aim for your individual links to be about 15cm (6 inches) long.

Cook the Sausages

The sausages need to be cooked in water at 80°C (176°F) for 40 minutes. You can do this sous vide, but I opted not to because of the risk of sausages splitting open and making a mess of my immersion circulator. I ended up cooking them in a big frying pan, monitoring the temperature with a digital thermometer, and turnig the heat on or off to try to maintain a constant temperature. After a few minutes, prick each sausage a few times with a cocktail stick. When cooked, remove them from the water, dry them with kitchen towel and hang them up to dry for at least an hour, possibly overnight.

How to Eat Morcilla de Burgos

Use morcilla exactly as you would British black pudding. In a cooked breakfast, slice it and fry it both sides. Or cut a sausage open and crumble the filling into scrambled eggs or an omelette. Mix it with pork mince to wrap around a scotch egg, or mix it into stuffing for poultry. The possibilities are endless: enjoy!