Mustamakkara (Finnish Blood Sausage)

Mustamakkara — ‘black sausage’ — is the blood sausage of Tampere, Finland’s interior industrial city: pig’s blood, crushed rye and rye flour, pork and fat, onion and a little spice, in a thick casing tied into a horseshoe, baked rather than boiled. It is sold hot at the city’s markets, bought by the euro rather than the weight, and eaten with lingonberry jam and a glass of cold milk.

The diagnostic detail is the rye. Ireland bulks its black pudding with oats, Burgos uses rice, Poland buckwheat; Tampere uses rye, which gives a darker, coarser, slightly sour sausage that holds its shape when sliced hot. The lingonberry is not a garnish — the tart jam against the iron of the blood is how it is meant to taste.

It exists because blood has to be used within hours of slaughter, and in the cold north it was cooked with whatever grain the house had. Tampere’s maker Tapola traces its recipe to a nineteenth-century village cook in Tottijärvi, near Nokia.

I have not made this one yet. The formula is Marianski’s, with rye flour added as the Tampere makers use it and the blood handled for safety; it is untested.

Ingredients

BATCH (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of total weight

• 680 g (1 lb 8 oz) lean pork shoulder — 30%
• 455 g (1 lb) pork back fat or fat belly — 20%
• 680 ml (2 3/4 cups) fresh or frozen pig’s blood, from a licensed source — 30%
• 340 g (2 cups) cracked rye or rye berries, soaked overnight and drained — 15%
• 115 g (1 cup) dark rye flour — 5%

SEASONING (% of total weight)

• 32 g salt (1.4%)
• 4.5 g black pepper (0.2%)
• 200 g onion, chopped and softened in lard
• 2.3 g dried marjoram (0.1%)
• 1.1 g nutmeg (0.05%)
• 1.1 g ground ginger (0.05%)
• 1.1 g allspice (0.05%)

CASING

• 38–40 mm beef runners or 36–38 mm hog casings, about 3 m
• 1 roll butcher’s twine

Directions

Key ingredients

Allspice · Black Pepper

1. In the collection: Allspice, Salt, Black Pepper. Buy blood only from a licensed processor or butcher, kept cold, with an anticoagulant already added; thaw frozen blood in the fridge and stir it smooth.
2. Soak the rye: overnight in cold water, then drain. Unsoaked grain drinks the blood, swells inside the casing and bursts it.
3. Grind and dice: lean pork through a 6 mm plate; fat in 6 mm dice. The diced fat shows as pale flecks in the black slice.
4. Mix wet into dry: combine rye, rye flour, salt and spices; stir in the softened onion, the meat and fat, then the cold blood. It will be a loose, wet porridge — that is right.
5. Taste — cook it first: poach a spoonful in simmering water until firm, then taste. Never taste raw blood mix. Blood sausage takes more salt and pepper than you expect.
6. Fill loosely: tie one end, and fill with a wide funnel or a jug only about two-thirds full; the rye keeps swelling. Tie the other end and bring the ends together into a horseshoe. Prick a few holes along the top.
7. Bake: on a greased tray at 200 °C / 390 °F for 25 minutes, turn, and bake 25 minutes more, to 71 °C / 160 °F inside. Baking dries and darkens the outside the Tampere way; poaching at 80 °C for 30–40 minutes and then baking for 20 also works and splits less.
8. Cool or serve: serve hot, cut into thick pieces, with lingonberry jam and cold milk. Cooled sausages keep 4–5 days in the fridge and freeze well; reheat by frying or baking.
9. Decision point: a burst casing means it was overfilled or the oven too hot; a crumbly, dry sausage means too little blood or fat. Its cousins in the collection are Irish Black Pudding, Blutwurst mit Graupen (German Blood Sausage with Barley), Morcilla de Burgos and Boudin Noir (French Blood Sausage).

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbone: Marianski’s Mustamakkara — per 1,000 g: lean pork 300 g, fat 200 g, pork blood 300 g, rye grains 200 g (soaked 24 hours); salt 12 g, pepper 2 g, onion powder 10 g, marjoram 1 g, cumin 1 g, nutmeg 0.5 g, ginger 0.3 g; 36 mm casings filled loosely; baked at 200 °C for 25 + 25 minutes. Deviations: (1) a quarter of the grain replaced with rye flour, because Tampere’s makers (Tapola’s label lists rye flour twice) and Wikipedia describe crushed rye and flour together; (2) fresh onion softened in lard instead of onion powder; (3) salt raised from 1.2% to 1.4%; (4) cumin replaced by allspice; (5) a poach-then-bake alternative. No cure — a fresh-cooked blood sausage, eaten within days. I have not made it; it is untested.

Where mustamakkara came from. Blood sausage of this kind was eaten in the Tampere region from at least the 17th century (Wikipedia) and was cooked over a small fire, in a cauldron or in an oven. Industrial production came in the 19th century. Tapola, the best-known maker, began in 1953 in a 25-square-metre room and traces its recipe to a 19th-century Tottijärvi village cook, Mathilda, and her sons Jaakko and Kalle Tapola. Savupojat is the other large producer. In Tampere it is sold hot at Tammelantori market and elsewhere, bought by the euro (‘five euros’ worth, please’), and a whole sausage is a menopaluu, a ‘round trip’, for its U-shape.

The name. Musta, black; makkara, sausage.

Variations. Commercial mustamakkara today is mostly rye flour, pork rind and blood protein with water, smoother than a homemade one with whole grain; some makers add barley; some bake it in a pan as a loaf (veripalttu and verileipä are related Finnish blood breads). Lingonberry jam is the fixed partner; milk or buttermilk to drink.

Sourcing and gear. Pig’s blood from a licensed slaughterhouse or an Asian or Eastern European butcher, usually frozen. Cracked rye or rye berries from a health-food shop or mill. Beef runners hold up better to baking than thin hog casing. A wide funnel; a jug.

Still open. A Tampere-published recipe with weights was not checked; how far back the specific name mustamakkara goes, as against blood sausage in general, is not settled.

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