When the darkness starts to infiltrate our early evenings, and the rooster starts crowing while it is still black in the morning, you know that autumn is coming in West Cork. The many elms around Friendly Cove are just starting to change colour from green to yellow. I guess they are the first to change because they are also the earliest to get leaves in the spring.

This cool air meant that our last pig needed to be killed and processed into dinner. On Saturday evening, that’s what we did & I made black pudding for the first time. I must say that the children thought it was successful!

Homemade Black Pudding recipe:

About 2/3 litres of pig blood
500 gr of pinhead oatmeal soaked
8 onions sweated down in olive oil and butter until nice and soft.
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Cloves

You are supposed to add back fat or lard chunks – but I didn’t.

– Mix the oatmeal and blood together with the soft onions in a large pan and set over a low heat, stirring constantly. After a long time, the mixture will start to get very thick and sticky. –Add in all the spices and keep stirring.

– Get another large pan of water boiling and spoon the mixture into pudding bags (I used old squares of sheets and tied them with cotton string) Once the water is boiling, pop those bundles of pudding into the boiling water and cook until they turn from deep red into grey and they feel firm to the fork when you poke them (don’t open just poke) or about twenty mins for a round the size of your fist.

– When they are totally cool, gentle open and slice and fry the slices in butter!