We made blood sausage the same day we made the pig head pozole. This was definitely another process that was completely worth the texture, flavor and honoring the pig. After sticking the pig, we put a bowl up to it and collected the blood that was pumped out by the heart. While collecting it, we whisked it to keep it from coagulating. We whisked it until it cooled down to room temperature. Then we put it in the fridge till we were ready to make blood sausage! 

For the sausage, I started with putting pieces of the grinder in the fridge to cool down. Then we cut up a couple pounds of shoulder, seasoned it with thyme, white pepper, black pepper, bay leaves and a few other things. We sautéed onions in butter and let that cool and mixed it with the meat. Then we sautéed apples in butter till they browned and added brandy. We also set that aside. Then we cut up back fat into tiny 1/4 inch cubes and made a panade with bread crumbs and cream. We ground up the shoulder and onion mixture in the meat grinder, added the blood, mixed till the myosin conversion kicked in and made the mixture bind. Then added the panade and folded in the back fat. I had soaked some natural hog casings (we didn’t use the small intenstines we cleaned because didn’t want blood leaking out if they broke.. which happened any way with the ones I bought). The natural hog casings are commercially processes small intestines from the hog. The hardest part was stuffing the sausages. Since these were liquid-y sausages, if the casing broke blood would seep out and more air pockets were developing. We used the sausage stuffer I bought and that worked really well for a few, but then we shifted to the funnel technique. It was tedious but we made it work! The casings kept breaking and blood would leak and then we would have to re-tie but it wouldn’t hold the tie. We eventually poached the finished linked sausages in 160 degree F water for 15 min and let them dry in the fridge till Thanksgiving day (day and half later) when we fried them up before preparing our Thanksgiving day feast. They were so delicious it was ridiculous. The apples and brandy really made the flavor. The blood texture is like eggs consistency, but wasn’t bad at all. You couldn’t even tell there was blood in there. The back fat kept it hydrated while frying and juicy! They were incredible!