davehayes.org

so today, i was poking around the internet reading about traditional irish foods. i came across quite a few things that were pretty interesting, and seemed like they might be tasty. irish stew, champ and soda bread all seemed like reasonable candidates for my dinner table. however, i kept noticing that breakfast is almost always served with black pudding. i have no idea what black pudding is, so i do the logical thing: google it. one of the first few results is a recipe for black pudding from scratch. as you can see by the picture there, it pretty much just looks like sausage, which is cool. or it was cool, until i got started reading the recipe. here, have a look:

1 1/4 qt Fresh pig’s blood
8 7/8 oz Bread cut into cubes
1 1/4 qt Skim milk
1 lb Cooked barley
1 lb Fresh beef suet
8 oz Fine oatmeal
1 t Salt
2 ts Ground black pepper
2 ts Dried and crumbled mint

Put the bread cubes to soak in the milk in a warm oven. Do not heat the milk beyond blood temperature! Have the blood ready in a large bowl, and pour the warm milk and bread into it. Stir in the cooked barley. Grate the beef suet into the mixture and stir it up with the oatmeal. Season with the salt, pepper and mint.

Have ready 2 or three large roasting pans. Divide the mixture between them. They should not be more than 3/4 full. Bake in a moderate oven — 350 F for about an hour or until the pudding is well cooked through. This makes a beautifully light pudding which will keep well in a cold larder.

Cut into squared and fry till heated through and the outside is crisp, in bacon fat or butter. Delicious for breakfast, or for supper with fried apples and mashed potato.

hold it right there! the main ingredient is pig’s blood!? i think that if i was expected to eat that with breakfast every morning, i’d probably drink heavily all day just to forget about it… bonus points if whatever i was drinking would fill me up so i wouldn’t have to eat that horrendous stuff again. i guess that explains why guiness comes from ireland…

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 10:26 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.