Loading ...We like our food and prefer to know where it comes from. Ever since we started watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series we try to grow and raise as much of our own food as possible.
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)Last year we added pigs to our farm livestock. Although only one of the 3 we had bought lived to be a good size. We decided we wanted to use everything of our pig that we possibly could; “Everything but the oink” is the phrase that has been used on many an occasion. Since we got our pigs in the early summer we had been looking forward to all sort of wonderful “piggy” delights one of which is black (or blood) pudding.
Black pudding is something that I had not made before and so really was not sure where to start. Sure I had seen Hugh make it during one of the episodes of River Cottage but other than that; I really had no idea what was going into it. Fortunately I had Heidi (providing support and research), a copy of the River Cottage cookbook and the internet to hand. The basic recipe seems to be blood, back fat, onions, cream and some sausage casings. From what I had read beef casings would be best, but having no experience I didn’t understand why. Now having made them using pig, I understand that the larger beef casing allows for a larger round shape to the sausage. This is something I’d like to rectify next time.
I had followed the basic recipe from the River cottage cook book –
2 litres of pigs blood
50g of salt
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
½ tsp ground mace
1 tbs Rum or Brandy
100ml milk
100g breadcrumbs
1kg pork fat – finely diced
1kg onions – finely diced
500ml double cream
Sieve the blood into a large pan and add the sugar, salt, pepper, mace and alcohol. In a small pan warm the milk and add the bread crumbs (we didn’t have any bread to hand and other recipes I have seen use oats so thats what I used), remove from the heat and let stand. In another large pan sweat about ¼ of the pork fat until it becomes translucent, then add the onions. Sweat these until they soften but don’t colour. Then add the rest of the fat and continue to sweat until the fat is translucent and has started to run. Stir in the milk soaked bread crumbs (oats) and the cream. Lastly slowly stir in the seasoned blood.
Now you need to fill the sausage casing – I used a small measuring jug and a canning funnel to pour the mixture into the casings. I made about a dozen sausages that were about 12 – 14 inches long. I made all of my sausages before poaching them in a large pan of simmering hot water.
To poach – I used the basket from my deep fryer to hold one sausage at a time. I placed the sausage in the basket then placed this in the water. After about 4 or 5 minutes I’d lift the basket out and turn the sausage over and continued to cook for 2 or 3 minutes. After which I took a sharp skewer and pricked the sausage a few times. If the sausage bled red then I continued to cook it for a few more minutes – until such time that when pricked the sausage bled brown. This indicates that it was cooked and could be removed from the hot water. Place the sausage straight into some very cold water for 2 or 3 minutes. Remove and allow to dry on a tea towel or paper towel.
According to Hugh the sausage should last a week in the refrigerator, or you can vacuum pack them and they should be good for about a month. Hugh doesn’t recommend freezing them, but we have bought black pudding frozen before, and as we had more than we could reasonably eat in a month we have stuck a couple in the freezer to see how they do.
You are braver than I am! My dad raves about the “blood pudding” they used to make when he was a kid and they slaughtered the hogs.
Comment by Paula — January 17, 2010 @ 4:46 pm
I think it helps if you grow up with things like this, Mum served it to us when we had a big cooked breakfast on the weekend, long before I learnt to question.
Comment by Heidi — January 17, 2010 @ 5:47 pm
Over on my Sugar Mountain Farm blog on the Burdock on Snow post you mentioned your pigs ate around the burdock whereas ours chow down on the burdock.
Do you feed the pigs corn or commercial hog feed (corn/soy)? In the Food Inc movie I noticed that Saladin’s pigs were not eating the burdock or grass around their grain feeder.
My guess was that they are finding the grain so appetitive that they don’t move onto the more nutritious graze and forage. The grain is like candy, full of calories, so it might be that they’re being selective. This is definitely something that one sees with all species, the selective grazing. But given that ours like the burdock (and thistles) so much I’m surprised yours skipped it.
Another thought is learned behavior. Critters, ourselves included, often are hesitant to eat new and unknown things because they might be poisonous. Thus they have to get a taste for it before they start grazing it well.
I’m curious about the make up of plants in your pastures (e.g., grasses, herbs, legumes (clover, alfalfa…), brush, etc.). Perhaps that has something to do with it too.
Cheers
-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project
Comment by Walter Jeffries — January 20, 2010 @ 9:52 am
Walter, I hope you don’t mind I moved your comment as this post seemed a more logical place.
We weren’t feeding them a commercial feed, they were on pasture, being supplemented with table & garden scraps, and with ‘past saleable’ greens from our farmers market and local grocery store.
I am not a grass expert although I really need to become one, but the area they were in is grassy, no herbs that I know of, not brush. But with burdocks. They turned over some areas, but left the burdocks standing.
I am not sure how sensible they all were as one died we think from escaping into my garden and eating rhubarb leaves!
Comment by Heidi — January 20, 2010 @ 10:00 am
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