Fresh Blood Black
Pudding Recipe
A fresh blood black pudding recipe is quite simply a tradition. Sadly over 99% of all black puddings made in the UK today are made using powdered pigs blood and much of this powdered blood isn’t British. Take a look at how black pudding is marketed today, it’s all about a secret long standing family black pudding recipe and not about the basic raw ingredient.
I was determined to make it the way it used to be made and preserve the traditional craft of making Lancashire black pudding with fresh pigs blood.
Why Fresh Blood Black Pudding?
- Texture - Black pudding made with fresh pigs blood is so much creamier than that made with powdered blood
- Tradition – The driving force behind these changes is the consolidation of abattoirs and EU legislation that make the collection of fresh blood more expensive and difficult to do. We believe that the traditional way needs to be kept alive, we need to keep it local and reduce the food miles between the farm and the fork.
- Waste – If we accept the fact that we are going to kill
animals in order to eat then isn’t it our duty to use every bit of the animal
so that it didn’t die in vain?
The Fresh Blood Black Pudding Recipe
Most manufacturers guard their recipes with their lives, mine is no big secret. Here’s my list of ingredients for a small batch:-
- 1 litre fresh pigs blood
- 250g flare fat
- 300g chopped onions
- 100g diced back fat (blanched for 2 minutes)
- 100g cooked wholegrain brown rice
- 100g guanciale (cured pigs cheek) or lardons
- 40g dry soy protein
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp mace
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ginger
Method
In a large heavy bottomed pan fry the onions and guanciale in the melted flare fat for a couple of minutes until the onion is translucent, throw in the dry soy protein and then blitz in a blender of mincer. Return the mix to the pan and add the seasonings and back fat.
Take the pan off the heat and add the fresh pigs blood through a sieve (this just filters out any congealed blood), return the pan to the heat and stir continuously until the temperature of the mix reaches 70°C (158°F). At this point your mix is still a liquid but sufficiently viscous that the added ingredients won't sediment whilst you finish off the cooking.
Pour (or ladle) the mix into a terrine and then finish cooking the terrine in a water bath until firm.
If you want to go the “full monty” on this one you should pour the mix into ox runners, tie off and cook in water at 80°C (176°F) for 30 minutes but frankly we recommend the terrine method then you just cut off a slice (admittedly it’s not a round slice) and pop it in the breakfast pan with your air dried bacon and gluten free sausage.
Check out our grilled black pudding page for ideas how to cook and present a slice.
Special thanks to Marc Frederic for his inspiration and help to make my own recipe.
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