Meats and Sausages
Morcilla Lebaniega
Morcilla Lebaniega is a blood sausage made in municipality of Liébana in Cantabria region of Spain. This short, large diameter sausage is made with blood, fat, red onions, spices and bread. It is aged between 2-3 months.
| Materials | Metric | US |
|---|---|---|
| Pork back fat | 350 g | 0.77 lb |
| Pork blood | 300 ml | 10 oz fl |
| Wheat bread, dry | 350 g | 0.77 lb |
Ingredients per 1000g (1 kg) of materials
| Salt | 15 g | 2.5 tsp |
| Black pepper | 2.0 g | 1 tsp |
| Red onions | 80 g | 1 small |
| Garlic | 7.0 g | 2 cloves |
| Oregano, dry | 3.0 g | 3 tsp |
Instructions
- Soak dry wheat bread or rolls in water or bouillon.* Drain and squeeze out the excess of water.
- Dice 1/3 of hard fat into 6 mm (1/4”) cubes. Grind remaining 2/3 of fat through 6 mm (1/4") plate.
- Chop onions and fry in round fat until glassy. Add drained bread and all spices during this step.
- Mix all together with blood and cubed fat.
- Stuff into pork caps (caecum), stomachs or bladders.
- Cook at 80° C (176° F) for 2-3 hours.
- Dry at 12-15°C (53-59° F) for 2-3 months. The sausage can be eaten at any of this time - serve raw, fried or boiled.
Notes
* bread soup (sopa de pan) is made in countless variations all over Europe and South America. Unused dried bread is broken into smaller pieces and cooked in a small amount of water or chicken stock. Salt, olive oil, pepper, garlic, sometimes cooked potato, egg or bacon are often added. The simplest version is to dissolve bouillon cube in water and soak bread in it (no cooking necessary.
Soaked dry bread combines well with other ingredients. In Cantabria, of course, a high quality and delicious local wheat bread called Pan Lebaniego will be used. Using bread for blood sausage is common occurrence in many countries, for example Polish blood sausage make with buckwheat groats is known as “Kaszanka”, but if made with bread or rolls it is called “Bułczanka” (the Polish word for a roll is “bułka”). There were food shortages in damaged by war countries and unused bread or rolls were always saved and later added to sausages or meat hamburgers. A quality wheat roll, like Portuguese roll, will not spoil at room temperature as long as kept at low humidity.
