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Black Pudding

A black pudding recipe brought together from various sources. I set out to make a Staffordshire black pudding but was put off by the inclusion of mint (or Penny Royal) in the recipes I found, so I made my own recipe based on others.
This is one of those food items that people seem to love or hate. If you love it then making your own is very satisfying.
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Equipment

  • You will need some large diameter skins such as beef middles. However, I use plastic black pudding sleeves from Weschenfelders which are 72mm wide. These are just more convenient than natural skins.
  • You don't need to use a sausage stuffer, the skins are wide enough to just spoon the mixture in and squeeze it down by hand. Yes, it can get a bit messy! You could use a stuffer but that's one more piece of kit to clean.

Ingredients
  

  • 150 g Dried blood
  • 850 ml Water to make 1litre blood
  • 500 g Pork back fat or fatty belly pork
  • 250 g Pearl barley - boiled until soft
  • 100 g Rusk
  • 100 g Oatmeal
  • 100 g Onion diced and softened in a little lard

Spices:

  • 30 g Salt 2% of "meat" weight - blood plus fat - this is lower than most recipes (around 3% would be the norm).
  • 10 g Ground White pepper
  • 1 g Paprika unsmoked
  • 0.3 g Ground Cloves
  • 1 g Ground Coriander

Instructions
 

Prepare all the ingredients

  • Boil the pearl barley until it is soft (about 20 minutes). Allow to cool.
  • Mince the belly pork or back fat on an 8mm plate.
  • Soften the onion in a little lard. Allow to cool.
  • Weigh out all the spices.
  • Put a large pan of water on to heat up to 80°c.

Make up the blood

  • In a large bowl mix the dried blood with just enough water to make a paste before adding the rest of the water and blend with a stick blender. Take care with the dried blood, it is a very fine powder; you may want to use a face mask.

Make up the pudding mixture

  • Mix all the ingredients together. It will appear runny at first but it will thicken quite quickly.
  • Use a spoon to stuff the casings and tie them off tightly making sure you squeeze out any air pockets. Check the size of your poaching pan and make sure you stuff your casings to an appropriate length - I have made that mistake, once.

Poach the puddings

  • Immerse the puddings in the hot water and maintain them at 80°c until they reach an internal temperature of 72°c - about 40 minutes to 1 hour. Do not allow them to boil, as this can cause them to burst.
  • Remove from the water and allow to cool.

Notes

This quantity of ingredients makes about 4 large puddings. Once cooked I slice them up into thick (1cm) rounds, vac pack them into suitable portions (packs of 6 in my case) and freeze them.
Black pudding is usually served fried, but remember that they are already cooked so you can eat them without any further preparation other than removing and discarding the plastic skin of course.  As a child I used to have black pudding sandwiches in my school lunch box and I didn't complain!