Zungenwurst (German Tongue and Blood Sausage)

A dark blood sausage with big pieces of pink cured tongue set into it, so every slice is a mosaic of rose-coloured tongue, white fat cubes and an almost black, jellied blood mass. Zungenwurst is a Kochwurst: everything except the blood is cooked before it goes into the casing, and the blood and pork rind set the mass around the pieces when the sausage is poached. The diagnostic detail is the tongue itself. It is cured, cooked soft, skinned and cut into large chunks, and it makes up more than half the sausage. Without the tongue it is a plain Blutwurst; without the blood it is the white Zungenwurst, a different sausage.

It exists because a slaughter produces both things at once — blood that has to be used within hours, and tongues that are too good to grind — and this is a way of using them together that slices beautifully cold. The formula is built from a German butcher’s published proportions and a home method, and it is untested as written. The blood must come from a licensed source.

Ingredients

TONGUE BRINE (for about 2 kg raw tongues)

• 2,000 g (4 lb 6 oz) raw pork tongues, about 8–10
• 2,000 g (2 litres) water
• 110 g salt
• 10 g Cure #1 (2.5 g per kg of tongues plus water)
• 20 g sugar
• 4 bay leaves, 10 allspice berries, 10 peppercorns

FINISHED MASS (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of total

• 1,360 g (3 lb) cured, cooked, skinned tongue, in 2–3 cm pieces — 60%
• 455 g (1 lb) pork back fat, in 6 mm dice, blanched — 20%
• 205 g (7 oz) pork rind (skin), cooked soft — 9%
• 205 ml (7 fl oz) pork blood, from a licensed source — 9%
• 45 g (1.5 oz) raw pork liver — 2%

SEASONING FOR THE MASS

• 16 g salt (1.8% of the 910 g non-tongue mass)
• 2.3 g Cure #1 (2.5 g/kg of the non-tongue mass)
• 100 g onion, finely diced and sweated in 20 g lard
• 4.5 g dried marjoram (0.2% of total)
• 4.5 g black pepper (0.2%)
• 2.3 g ground allspice (0.1%)
• 0.5 g ground clove (a pinch)
• 60 mm beef middle, or 75–90 mm fibrous casing

Directions

Key ingredients

Allspice · Black Pepper

1. In the collection: pork tongue, blood, rind and back fat. The collection’s barley blood sausage, Blutwurst mit Graupen (German Blood Sausage with Barley), is the same blood-and-rind mass with grain instead of tongue; the tongue on its own is Tongue with Horseradish Sauce.
2. Brine the tongues (5 days): scrub the tongues, weigh them, and add an equal weight of water. Dissolve the salt, Cure #1 and sugar in the water, add the spices, and submerge the tongues under a plate in the fridge for 5 days, turning once a day. This is equilibrium curing: the 10 g of Cure #1 is 2.5 g per kg of tongue plus water, so when the salt has evened out the tongue carries about 156 ppm nitrite. The cure is what keeps the tongue pink and its own flavour in the finished slice.
3. Cook and skin the tongues: rinse, cover with fresh water and simmer gently for 2½–3 hours until a skewer goes through the thickest part easily. While still hot, slit and peel off the skin — it comes away cleanly only while warm. Trim the gristle at the root and cut the tongue into 2–3 cm pieces. Weigh out 1,360 g.
4. Cook the rind and blanch the fat: simmer the pork rind about 2 hours until very soft, then grind it through a 2–3 mm plate while warm; it is the gelatin that will set the mass. Dice the back fat at 6 mm and scald it in boiling water for a minute, then drain — blanching firms the cubes so they stay white and distinct.
5. Make the mass: warm the blood gently to about 40 °C / 104 °F, stirring, so it mixes evenly with the warm rind — cold blood against warm rind sets in lumps. Purée the raw liver. Mix the ground rind, sweated onion, liver, salt, Cure #1 and spices, then stir in the blood. Fold in the fat cubes and the tongue pieces last.
6. Decision point — taste safely: do not taste the raw blood mass. Poach a tablespoon of it in a small bag or a ramekin in simmering water until set, then taste for salt and marjoram and adjust.
7. Stuff: into the casing, firmly, working the tongue pieces in so there are no big voids, and tie off. The mass is loose; a wide funnel or horn and patience are easier than a stuffer.
8. Poach: in water held at 80 °C / 176 °F until the centre reads 71 °C / 160 °F — about 1 minute per millimetre of diameter, so roughly 60–90 minutes for 60–90 mm. Do not boil, or the casing bursts and the blood leaks.
9. Cool pressed: chill in cold water, then lay the sausage flat and press lightly under a board overnight in the fridge so it sets evenly. Optional: cold-smoke for a few hours below 25 °C / 77 °F the next day.
10. Serve: sliced cold on dark bread with onions and mustard, or fried in slices. Keeps about 10 days refrigerated.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The proportions — 60% cured cooked tongue, 20% back bacon, 9% blood, 9% rind, 2% raw liver — are one German butcher’s published composition for Zungenblutwurst. The method (tongues cured and cooked soft, rind finely ground, blood warmed to about 40 °C, poached at 80 °C, optional cold smoke) follows a home sausage-maker’s write-up on the grillsportverein.de forum. Deviations, numbered: (1) The tongue cure is an equilibrium brine at 2.5 g Cure #1 per kg of tongue plus water, chosen so the nitrite figure can be calculated. The source recipes say only “cured”. (2) Cure #1 is also added to the blood-rind mass, at 2.5 g/kg of that mass, matching the German practice of seasoning it with nitrite curing salt. (3) The spice amounts are the collection’s blood-sausage spicing, not from either source. (4) Cooking is to 71 °C / 160 °F internal. UNTESTED.

Where Zungenwurst came from. It is a slaughter-day sausage in the German Kochwurst family, where everything but the blood is pre-cooked. German food-code guidelines (Leitsätze) set minimum quantities for tongue in a sausage sold as Zungenwurst. That rule is confirmed by a Bavarian food-safety authority report, but the figure itself is not given here because the text was not read. Thüringer Rotwurst, a related blood sausage, is an EU-protected geographical indication.

The name. “Tongue sausage.” It is sold as Zungenwurst or Zungenblutwurst. Weiße Zungenwurst is the bloodless version: brined tongue cubes in a pale veal-and-pork batter, which Marianski gives with a 40° salometer brine for 72 hours.

Variations. The American “blood tongue” of delis in German-settled areas adds bread crumbs and oatmeal to the blood. It is a looser, cheaper product. Some German butchers use beef tongue, or add pieces of cooked pork heart. A Zungenwurst in a wide natural casing is often pressed flat while it cools.

Sourcing and gear. Pork tongues are cheap at Asian and Latino butchers. Blood: fresh pork blood with an anticoagulant from a licensed slaughterhouse or processor, or frozen pork blood from a licensed supplier; never blood of unknown origin. It must be kept cold and used within a day or two of thawing. Pork rind (skin) is sold by the same shops. A wide funnel beats a piston stuffer for a chunky mass.

Still open. The Leitsätze minimum tongue share for Zungenwurst. Whether commercial Zungenwurst is usually smoked — sources differ. Which German region the type is most associated with: Thuringia and Hesse are both claimed, with no source settling it.

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