Historic and Unusual Recipes!!

Blood Pudding (or sausages) are served in French, Belgian, German, British, Quebec, Acadian, Creole, Austrian and Cajun cuisine.

This Blood Pudding a.k.a. Boudin is baked in loaf pans instead of sausage casing.

boudin-noir-courtesy-of-banque-dimages — Boudin Noir, or as the British say, Black Pudding. This version will look similar in color and texture.

Photo courtesy of Banque D’Images

This is my 2nd post in the category Historic and Unusual Recipes. The first was How to Cook a Terrapin (or Turtle). I discovered that recipe in a very old Fanny Farmer Cookbook and posted it simply because I found it interesting. Guess what? Almost every day… week in and week out… How to Cook a Terrapin (or Turtle) appears in my list of ‘Readers Recent Favorites’. Who woulda thunk it? And now it’s gonna be interesting to see how well received this French Canadian Blood Pudding recipe is! ; o )

I made French Canadian Blood Pudding only once, using the blood from one of the pigs we raised. We planned to roast the pig on a special spit – and feed the neighbors, the local family, the family from Montreal and the family from the States. Luckily it was a BIG pig. So big it actually broke the rented spit… but that’s another story.

My husband’s family all told me I’d fed my pigs too much because, when butchered, they all had a lot of fat. They said I ‘babied’ all my animals. Hey, if you were a pig… and it was hot… wouldn’t you be happy if someone gently sprayed you with cold water. Of course you would. I rest my case.

My husband’s aunt Therese and I prepared the Blood Pudding at the Roy Family Farm in St. Flavien, Quebec (Canada) where my husband’s family has lived/farmed for the last seven generations. It’s a huge house with a huge kitchen. There’s a wood burning stove and a modern stove – a lovely mixture of old and new. (I remember visiting around 1970 and there was still a water pump in ‘The Summer Kitchen’. I’ll explain about Summer Kitchens another time.)

I just deleted the paragraph about hanging the pig upside down etc. I didn’t want to gross you out any more than necessary..

When I arrived at the old family farm with my bucket of pig blood, Ma Tante Therese (My Aunt in French.) was armed and ready with the necessary utensils and pans. Ma Tante didn’t speak much English and my French is far from great, but I managed to write down several of her old French Canadian recipes over the years, including this one for Blood Pudding, while I either helped or watched her cook. And an excellent cook she was.

My husband LOVED the Blood Pudding we’d made. And I was pretty darn proud of myself, let me tell you. I did take a tiny taste of it… Blood Pudding has an unusual texture – no surprise there. It does taste pretty good, if you can get beyond the ‘main ingredient’.

My husband loved to eat his Boudin cut into slices and fried. He especially loved it for breakfast with scrambled eggs. At the time I made the Blood Pudding my husband could only eat soft things due to oral cancer. You can imagine how pleased I was, especially at that point in his life, to have prepared something for him which he’d loved his whole life.

Life is short. Prepare your loved ones favorite dishes. Doing so truly is a gift of love!

This recipe for French Canadian Blood Pudding (Boudin) is prepared in two loaf pans.

I’m going to give you the recipe as I wrote it down – although sometimes I’ve written recipes from our French Canadian Aunts half in French and half in English.

Fresh blood from one pig

Strain the blood to get the clots out. If clots are big, remove them with a big wooden spoon.

Add the exact same amount of milk as there is blood.

Put milk and blood into a large bowl.

Add:

1 ½ large onions – cut up very fine

1 pound pig lard (fat) ++ from the pig

2 Tbs. salt

1 Tbs. pepper ++ Not a full tablespoon. And Ma Tante used an actual soup spoon.

1 Tbs. ground cloves ++ Not a full tablespoon. And Ma Tante used an actual soup spoon.

Grease two bread pans with oil.

Pour blood mixture into pans.

Cook at 400 for one hour. Enjoy! ++ I recommend cutting the Boudin into slices or squares and frying it.

After the rain comes the rainbow. (Our farm in St. Antoine de Tilly, Quebec)

I’m fascinated with old recipes – old ways of baking and cooking – whether from the Renaissance, Victorian or Colonial times etc. If we think about it for a moment, it hasn’t been all that long since we cooked in stoves or chimneys over wood fires! In fact, it hasn’t been that long since we had to slaughter the animals we were going to prepare. Almost every part of the slaughtered animal was eaten.. the tail, the snout, the stomach lining, and (in the Middle East) the eyeballs, because if you’d put lots of time, effort and, perhaps, money into raising an animal, you didn’t want to waste a thing.

We slaughtered and ate our animals when we owned our farm in Quebec, although, I must confess I couldn’t eat our pigs….I had given them names and they had come to trust me…

One time we barbequed one of our pigs. We basted it with our own maple syrup and garlic – oooh – did it smell good. But, when it came time to eat, I just couldn’t.

I was, though, able to eat the turkey and Guinea Fowl we raised. In fact, I cleaned and de-feathered a Guinea Fowl not long after we had slaughtered it. (Creepy…. the bird did flop around a good awhile without it’s head….) I’ve made delicious rabbit stews with some of our rabbits. In fact, now that I think of it, I once cooked a wild Snow Goose in some maple syrup and onions…it was really tasty, but a bit tough…(Same thing goes for the Guinea Fowl !)

So – here’s my first post in the “Historic and Unusual Recipes” category – How to Cook Terrapin (Turtle) – from an old Fanny Farmer Cookbook Enjoy – that is, if you enjoy reading about unusual recipes!I

In February 2013 I posted How to Cook a Terrapin (a.k.a.Turtle) just “for fun” and informational value because I love to see how (and what) people used to consider “delish” years ago, whether from the 1500s – or the 1900s! But within a few months I realized many people were, in fact, using this recipe to prepare turtles for eating.

How to Cook a Terrapin (a.k.a. Turtle)

You will need: One 6 – 7 inch LIVE terrapin (Will be enough for two people.) Plus one carrot, some sliced onion and 1 stalk celery.

In a large pot, plunge the terrapin into boiling salted water and boil for five minutes. Lift terrapin out of water with a skimmer. Remove skin by rubbing briskly with a towel. Pull out the head with a skewer and rub off skin.

Return terrapin to pot. Add 1 carrot, some sliced onion and 1 stalk of celery. Simmer until feet fall off and shell cracks – about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Once more, remove terrapin from pot, lay it on it’s back and allow to cool only enough to handle. Pull out the nails from the feet. Cut under the shell close to the upper shell and carefully remove upper shell.

Empty the upper shell and carefully remove and discard sand bags, gall bladder and thick, heavy part of intestines.

Cut terrapin meat into pieces about 1 1/2′ long.

++ The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, the origin of this recipe, advises serving the liver and smaller part of the intestines, cut up small, plus any turtle eggs with the meat. However, you just might not choose to eat those parts…

++ According to Fannie Farmer, “Most terrapin gourmets make no attempt to remove the bones”.

To serve the terrapin “Washington Style”, make a white cream sauce by melting 1 1/2 Tbs. butter, add 1 1/2 Tbs. flour, stir until well mixed, then add 1 cup cream. Simmer mixture, using a whisk if you have one, until thickened.

Add cooked terrapin meat and 1/2 cup sauteed chopped mushrooms. Season to taste.

Just before serving, add two slightly beaten eggs & mix the eggs in well. (Adding the eggs thickens the white cream sauce – but – adding the eggs is NOT necessary.)

++ ++ If the sauce is too thick, add a bit more cream.

Category: Historic and Unusual Recipes!!