Hi folks, first of all I'll be making another batch of English type black puds tomorrow and this time i'm thinking of using a sleeve instead of casings. When filling the sleeve, do they need to be tight or do you have to allow for swelling as with the natural casing ? I don't want to end up with a pan of BP soup !
The other question is about Morcilla. I was attempting to make these from copying a recipe from Geoff Wiess' Spanish charcuterie book. I cooked the onions in lard, then added them to the blood mix with the quantity of small grain rice. The recipe mentioned that the rice would swell and absorb some of the liquid. when I attempted to fill the casings using a caulk gun and sausage tube (does a good job with the english puds) the liquid was pushed through, leaving the rice grains behind - clogging up the tube. I ended up aborting the mission !
I'm going to have another go soon, but changing it slightly by either part cooking the rice first (didn't want to do this as I thought i would be left with a 'wet' pudding, but now realise that the blood (dried + water) would solidify), or should I grind the raw rice down into a powder and add it to the liquid to firm it up for filling ?
Any advice is welcome !