Black Pudding

Not just found in Lancashire, eaten throughout the North of England, Scotland and the English Midlands and all other places where people of good taste can be found, even Yorkshire!

Basically a blood sausage, the flavour of which varies between regions, If you get a chance try some from the Bury area.

• 125g pearl barley, rice or groats
• 125g fine oatmeal
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 600 ml fresh pig's blood
• 250g beef or pork suet, diced
• 50g onions
• sausage skins or casings

Cook the barley, rice or groats in four times their volume of water until just soft. Mix the oatmeal with the salt and pepper and stir into a paste with a little strained blood. Add the cereal, suet, onions and the remaining strained blood to the oatmeal mixture. Put into the skins, stirring the mixture to ensure that the fat does not separate.

Tie the sausage skins loosely and drop into hot (NOT BOILING) water; Boil for 20 minutes or until no blood comes out when pricked.

To serve, heat in hot water for 10 to 15 minutes or score at intervals and grill for 4 minutes on each side.

Black puddings can also be cut into rounds and shallow fried. They go very well with eggs, particularly scrambled eggs.