Recipes

Morcilla de Burgos

A blood sausage that is mostly onion and rice, with blood as the binder and the color rather than the bulk — it contains no lean meat at all. It's the third point of the triangle with French boudin noir and Irish black pudding, and the one furthest from both. The filler tells you the country: rice means Spain.

Sausage · Spanish · Charcuterie

Morcilla de Burgos
Prep 1 hour
Cook 40 minutes
Serves About 5 lb / 2.3 kg — linked every 20 cm
Level Medium

A blood sausage that is mostly onion and rice, with blood as the binder and the color rather than the bulk — it contains no lean meat at all. It’s the third point of the triangle with French boudin noir and Irish black pudding, and the one furthest from both. The filler tells you the country: rice means Spain.

Ingredients

  • % OF TOTAL MIX (falls inside the IGP limits: onion ≥30%, rice 10–40%, blood >9%, lard 10–25%, no meat):
  • 953 g (2 lb 2 oz) onion, finely chopped (Horcal, or any sweet white) — 42%
  • 477 g (1 lb) rice, cooked UNDERDONE — 21%
  • 477 g (1 lb) lard — 21%
  • 363 ml (12 fl oz) pork blood — 16%
  • 27 g salt (1.2%)
  • 23 g sweet paprika (1.0%) + 4.5 g hot paprika (0.2%)
  • 7 g rubbed oregano (0.3%), 4.5 g black pepper (0.2%), 2.3 g thyme, 2.3 g coriander, 1.1 g cinnamon, 0.7 g cloves, 0.5 g ground anise

NO cure — cooked sausage

  • 35–45 mm natural casing

Directions

  1. Key ingredients: the three-way blood contrast lives in the notes — this is the rice one, opposite my Black Pudding, Irish (oats) and French Boudin Noir (French Blood Sausage) (nothing).
  2. No grinding: onions are finely chopped, rice stays whole. This is an assembly, not a forcemeat.
  3. Stuff LOOSE: rice absorbs water and swells during the poach; a tightly-stuffed morcilla bursts. Same physics as the oats in my Irish black pudding, different grain.
  4. Undercook the rice going in: it finishes in the casing. Fully-cooked rice gives you paste.
  5. Cook — never boil: 80 °C / 176 °F water, 40 minutes, then cool to 8–10 °C and refrigerate. Above a gentle poach the blood coagulates coarsely and it can’t be undone.
  6. The Horcal onion: a Burgos variety up to 92% water, chosen because it’s sweet and chops cleanly rather than turning to mush — its water is where the moisture in the finished sausage comes from, so you add no stock or milk. A sweet white onion is the honest substitute; say it’s a substitute.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Marianski’s formula, which falls inside the IGP composition limits (a good sign).

The three-way blood-sausage contrast (the teaching point). The filler tells you the country: rice = Spain (this), oats = Ireland/Scotland (Black Pudding, Irish), nothing = France (Boudin Noir (French Blood Sausage)), barley/bread = Germany. Morcilla de Burgos is defined by onion (≥30%) with blood the minority ingredient (>9%) and no meat at all — the opposite weighting from the French and Irish versions.

Sourcing. Fresh unclotted pork blood — same supplier as my puddings (frozen, market near campus). Horcal onion won’t be found outside Burgos; a sweet white is the substitute.

Still open. The Consejo Regulador’s finished-product organoleptic criteria not transcribed here.