Morcella

Cabonaia · Post by **Cabonaia** » Mon Nov 04, 2013 05:07

I made some morcella - Portuguese blood sausage - using Hank Shaw's recipe with some adjustments. I grew up eating a locally made version that, in my memory, had cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg in it, so I added small amounts of those. My apologies for not keeping track of what I did - next time I will write it all down. Here is a link to what I started with, and stuck to in terms of method: http://honest-food.net/2009/03/16/repay ... d-sausage/

I filled the casings (large hog casings - "38mm and up" I think) very loosely, and it's a good thing I did because the meat and blood expanded a lot.

The blood came from a pig I had slaughtered, so it was very fresh. Making it was pretty messy but not at all miserable, and I will do it again. Morcella is great fried with eggs for breakfast. It sounds rather...er...aggressive, but is actually quite a mild sausage.

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Best,
Jeff

Post by **redzed** » Mon Nov 04, 2013 19:45

Very nice Jeff. I looked at Hank's site and really liked the seasonings in the recipe. One of these days I will have to go the local abattoir and get some fresh blood and make some.

Cabonaia · Post by **Cabonaia** » Mon Nov 04, 2013 22:47

redzed wrote:Very nice Jeff. I looked at Hank's site and really liked the seasonings in the recipe. One of these days I will have to go the local abattoir and get some fresh blood and make some.

Thank you sir. I wish you were around because I would give you some blood next time I take a pig in. One thing I forgot to mention is that Hank's recipe starts by saying to heat your poaching water to 180, then later he says 160. For these rather delicate sausages, 160 is the way to go - but you would probably figure that out.

Best,
Jeff

crustyo44 · Post by **crustyo44** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:12

Hi Jeff,
I bet Rudy (Ida Kraut) will be trying this recipe out. Rudy seems to have made a lot of blood sausage.
At the moment I am ringing around if fresh blood is available. Nobody heard of the dried stuff around here.
Morcella coming up when I source the blood.
Can you freeze excess blood?
Cheers,
Jan.

Cabonaia · Post by **Cabonaia** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 16:29

crustyo44 wrote:Hi Jeff,
I bet Rudy (Ida Kraut) will be trying this recipe out. Rudy seems to have made a lot of blood sausage.
At the moment I am ringing around if fresh blood is available. Nobody heard of the dried stuff around here.
Morcella coming up when I source the blood.
Can you freeze excess blood?
Cheers,
Jan.

Hi Jan - I hope someone does because it is really good.

A few more comments. Re. the spices I added to Hank's recipe (allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg or mace, clove), I went rather lightly - about 1/2 teaspoon each for a 5 lb. batch. If you like these spices definitely use them, as they make for a lovely "warm" flavor.

Yes, you can freeze blood, and that is what I did with my excess. I will be finding out how well frozen blood works the next I make this sausage, as I won't have any fresh again for a while.

The amount of blood you use is flexible. I used quite a bit. Everybody who has tasted the sausage likes it a lot, but of course some won't go near it when they find out it is blood sausage. My son's daughter is from Slovakia, and she didn't hesitate. It's nothing unusual over there.

I didn't use any filler such as rice, oats, barley, etc., so mine came out "sliceable." However, the morcella I recall was not sliceable - I think it had rice in it. Though mine is sliceable, I still prefer it fried as that is how I have always eaten it. Next time I will add rice and see how that comes out. It seems to me that if a sliceable type is made, for eating cold, it would be better to add less blood. I added ~50%. If I planned to make a batch for eating cold, I might go with 20% blood.

Here is some excellent advice from Marianski that you may have seen. I found it very helpful, although Hank Shaw's instructions are already excellent: http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage ... od-sausage

Cheers,
Jeff

IdaKraut · Post by **IdaKraut** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 19:28

Looks like a nice recipe Jeff and your sausage looks delicious. I love blood sausage of any kind. Using allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg really brings out the flavor in my opinion. I personally don't care for non-meat fillers like rice or rusk, instead preferring to use ground pork instead. Be sure to add some nice diced pork back fat since blood is so lean and needs the added fat.

Jan, forget the dried blood. I had some imported from England and compared to fresh, there is no comparison. I have been buying fresh or frozen pork blood from an Asian food store (they bring it in fresh but freeze it if it doesn't sell the same day it arrives) that is a bit of a drive for me but it is definitely worth it to buy fresh or frozen.

crustyo44 · Post by **crustyo44** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 19:56

Hi Jeff and Rudy,
I have found a small abattoir not far from me, instead of ringing them up, I might visit them with 2 or 3 bottles of my best corn based moonshine to see if they can supply me with some fresh pigs blood and what container they need.
I have fond memories of blood sausage when I lived in Holland.
Thanks for the added advise both of you.
Cheers,
Jan.