Sunday, October 31, 2010

Cooking with Blood: Blood Cake

Sliced blood cakeThis cake is based on a recipe from Fergus Henderson's book The Whole Beast. The procedure and recipe are almost identical to those for blood sausage:
  • sweat onions, garlic, and spices in butter;
  • add blood and heat to thicken;
  • add cornmeal in a steady stream, stirring constantly to prevent clumping;
  • heat the mixture until it thickens;
  • add diced backfat;
the only difference being that the mixture is cooked in a loaf pan in a water bath instead of casings.

Unlike the first round of blood sausage, this cake set beautifully. It was tender, but held up to slicing. This experiment reinforces my theory that there was too much moisture in the other blood sausages. (The cornmeal in the cake was cooked directly in the blood, while the oats in the blood sausage were cooked in water first.) Henderson's recipe would make a fantastic stuffing for blood sausage. Maybe a polenta, fennel, and chili blood sausage...

Happy Halloween.

4 comments:

  1. Now - that is the Perrrrrrrrfect post for halloween! BLOOD CAKE.
    :)
    Valerie

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  2. Hey there! Just found your blog through Val at Canadian Foodie (oh look there she is right above me!) and I'm excited to have found a fellow Edmontonian food blogger :) This post is so fun and perfect for Halloween!!

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  3. Love the pumpkin and squash. Very creative carving. I'm one of those squeamish people about eating blood cake and since I can't eat onions I have a valid excuse not to try it.

    I watched Jamie Oliver on his American road trip yesterday and he went to an underground supper club in New York and then ran his own. The people who came to this particular one put payment in a box to pay for the meal (whatever they thought was appropriate) and brought their own booze. The two women who were hosting it had met their husbands at a supper club. I tried googling supper club in Edmonton but didn't find any hits that weren't selling tea shirts that said supper club on them.
    I tried out the ceramic paring knife today that I bought at the Padermo sale at Mayfield trade center. I'm amazed at how well it worked. It says it stays sharp ten times longer then a regular knife but it doesn't say if it can be sharpened when it goes dull. Does anyone know?

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