Black pudding in a pork pie (they're, ahem, bloody lovely)
Talk about black pudding ahoy
If you are squeamish about the red stuff (and I don't mean Merlot) look away now!
Right... still with us? Off we go. I promise I'll be very gentle.
I love black pudding but have held off, for a long time, from making black pudding pork pies.
This was mainly because I found out a while ago that, extraordinarily, almost all UK black pudding is made from imported dried blood (including by the companies you're probably thinking of) and it seemed a bit strange to go to lengths about making our pies with local, free range, traceable pork whilst compromising on the origins of black pudding.
But then we were approached, in the nicest sense, by Matt and Grant from The Fruit Pig Company, based just up the coast. They are lovely and we've known them for ages. You might know them also. They're increasingly famous and have recently popped up on Jamie Oliver's Channel 4 series and even more recently on BBC4's The Food Programme. The reason the the great and the good are flocking to their door is that they actually make their black pudding from scratch, using fresh local blood rather than dried. And it really makes a difference to the texture and quality, in a very good way. And as far as the pies go, we believe in...
...Quality in, quality out
The best black pudding used by the best chefs
But the reason I've been buying their black (and white) pudding for home Sunday breakfast for some years is that it tastes just amazing. Like the pie work we do, Matt and Grant create their products by hand, in small quantities and I think that sort of care does make a difference to the individuality and quality of the result. Happily my taste is being vindicated by numerous top flight cheffy types like Tom Kerridge, Tom Aitkin and Jamie Oliver to name but three, who are all buying Fruitpig Black Pudding.
So we've started a lovely (and tasty) collaboration with Fruit Pig and are making Bray's Cottage/Fruit Pig Black Pudding Pork Pies.
One of our local hotels have already started putting them on their breakfast menu - now there's an idea for a very good start to the day.
Treat yourself to a black pudding pork pie (or six)
(you Know you really should)
head immediately along to our pies by post shop:
Delicious delivered - click here
Also available as our bake at home pork pies - always have a stash ready to bake in your freezer.
Matt from FruitPig and Sarah from Bray's Cottage. Sitting casually, somewhere in Norfolk.