Morcela (Azorean Blood Sausage)

Morcela is Portugal’s blood sausage, and the Azorean one — from São Miguel especially — is its most distinctive: pig’s blood with diced pork fat, onion, parsley, cooked rice or soaked wheat bread, a little toasted corn flour, and a spice mix of cumin, cinnamon, clove and the island’s red-pepper paste (pimenta da terra), stuffed into casings that have been washed with sour orange, boiled, sometimes smoked, then fried crisp. On São Miguel it is served with fresh pineapple; elsewhere with sweet potato, yam or white rice.

The diagnostic detail is the cumin and pepper paste with the sweet spices — warmer and more Atlantic than a Spanish morcilla — and the fruit on the plate, which cuts the richness.

It is winter food, tied to the season from Christmas to Carnival; island households gave morcelas to the carollers who came round singing the Janeiras. Use blood from a licensed source, keep it cold, and cook to temperature. I have not made this one yet; it is built from the Portuguese ministry’s description of Morcelas de S. Miguel and standard blood-sausage practice, and it is untested.

Ingredients

BLOOD AND FILLING

• 1 litre (34 fl oz / 1,050 g) fresh pork blood, from a licensed source
• 400 g (14 oz) pork belly or toucinho (fatback with some streak), cooked 30 minutes and cut in 5 mm dice
• 350 g (12 oz) onion, finely chopped
• 300 g (2 cups) cooked white rice — or 250 g stale wheat roll soaked in a little milk or water
• 40 g (⅓ cup) corn flour (fine cornmeal) or wheat flour, toasted dry in a pan until fragrant
• 30 g (1 cup) flat parsley, chopped
• 30 g (2 Tbsp) lard or olive oil

SEASONING (for about 2.3 kg mix)

• 35 g fine salt (about 1.5%)
• 40 g pimenta da terra (Azorean red-pepper paste) or Portuguese hot pepper paste (pimenta moída)
• 4 g ground cumin
• 3 g ground cinnamon
• 0.5 g ground cloves
• 3 g ground black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 15 ml (1 Tbsp) wine vinegar

CASING

• 36–40 mm hog casing, rinsed with the juice of 1 sour (Seville) orange, or lemon and orange mixed

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Cinnamon · Olive Oil

1. In the collection: blood from a licensed supplier at 0–4 °C. The Spanish rice-and-onion cousin is Morcilla de Burgos; the Irish oat one is Irish Black Pudding.
2. Prepare the casing: rinse inside and out, then soak 30 minutes in water with the sour-orange juice. The island tradition is about smell; it also freshens the casing.
3. Cook the onion: in the lard over low heat, 15 minutes, until soft and sweet. Add the garlic for the last minute.
4. Mix: whisk the blood smooth with the vinegar, salt, pepper paste and spices. Stir in the onion, diced fat, rice, toasted flour and parsley. It should be a loose, dark batter thick with solids. Fry a spoonful to taste — adjust cumin and salt now.
5. Fill loosely: two-thirds full, with a wide funnel, stirring the batter between fills so the solids do not settle. Tie into 15–20 cm sausages. Rice and flour swell; tight sausages split.
6. Poach: in salted water at 80–85 °C (176–185 °F), never boiling, 30–40 minutes, lifting them out once or twice to let the steam escape (the island cooks hang them on a stick across the pot and air them). Done: a needle brings up no red juice and the centre is 71 °C (160 °F).
7. Smoke (optional): once cooled and dry, 2–4 hours of cold smoke below 25 °C. Then refrigerate. Keep 5 days, or freeze. Do not store them under lard at room temperature as the old houses did.
8. Serve: sliced or whole, fried in lard or olive oil until crusted, or roasted. With fresh pineapple, sweet potato or yam, and white rice.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbone: the Portuguese agriculture ministry’s file on Morcelas de S. Miguel (DGADR, Produtos Tradicionais Portugueses): blood, parsley, chopped onion, cooked rice or wheat roll (rolão), cinnamon, pimenta da terra, pieces of toucinho, trimmings, toasted corn or wheat flour, intestinal fat, garlic, vinegar, salt, cumin and clove; casings washed well with sour orange; boiled while hanging from the pot’s edge and aired several times; then smoked or hung in the chimney, and stored in jars covered with lard; eaten fried or oven-roasted, with white rice, sweet potato or yam, on São Miguel with pineapple or orange; 100–300 g, around 20 cm. The ministry gives no quantities; these are this recipe’s own, set from standard blood-sausage proportions. Deviations: (1) intestinal fat replaced by belly; (2) refrigeration instead of storage under lard; (3) a core temperature. Untested.

Where morcela came from. Morcela is the Portuguese name for the blood sausage that Spain calls morcilla; every pig-killing region of Portugal has one. The Alentejo’s Morcela de Estremoz e Borba (protected) is quite different: head meat, bloody meats and fat with red-pepper paste, garlic, clove and blood, smoked over holm oak, black and horseshoe-shaped. Beira and Guarda make rice morcelas (morcela de arroz), and Jarmelo a sweet one (morcela doce). Azorean emigrants carried the island style to New England and California, where Portuguese bakeries and markets in Fall River, New Bedford and the Central Valley still sell it.

Rice or not. The Azorean morcela is often described as the rice one. The ministry’s own file says rice or wheat roll, plus toasted flour; rice is common, not defining.

The name. Morcela/morcilla is of uncertain origin; no etymology is settled.

Variations. Sarapatel, debulho or serrabulho — the same filling with more onion, parsley and seasoning, cooked loose in a pan rather than cased. Bread instead of rice for a softer slice.

Sourcing and gear. Pimenta da terra and massa de malagueta are sold in Portuguese groceries; a Calabrian or Turkish hot-pepper paste is a fair stand-in. Pork blood frozen from Asian or Hispanic butchers. A funnel for filling; a thermometer for the water.

Still open. Proportions for the São Miguel morcela are not published anywhere read; they should be checked against an Azorean community cookbook.

The photo. The photograph is a Portuguese charcuterie counter — the dark rings are morcelas, the pale labelled ones alheiras — not specifically Azorean morcela.

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