Verivorst recipe

Pork blood bound with pearl barley cooked soft and scented with marjoram, poached gently then roasted until the casing crackles.

15 hours and 30 minuteshard9 ingredients

Ingredients

• 700 ml pork blood
• 400 g pearl barley
• 300 g salt pork or fatback
• 3 onions
• 2 tbsp dried marjoram
• 3 hog casings
• 1 tsp allspice
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper

How to make Verivorst

1. Soak 400 g of pearl barley overnight, then boil it in salted water for 30 minutes until soft. Drain and spread it out to cool completely; warm barley will cook the blood.
2. Dice 300 g of salt pork and render it slowly in a pan, then cook 3 chopped onions in the fat for 10 minutes until golden. Let this cool too.
3. Mix the barley, the pork and its fat, the onions, 2 tablespoons of dried marjoram, 1 teaspoon of ground allspice, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Taste the mix now, before the blood goes in.
4. Stir in 700 ml of pork blood, strained through a sieve to catch any clots, until the filling is even and loose.
5. Rinse the hog casings inside and out and stuff them loosely, about three quarters full. The barley swells and a tight sausage will burst.
6. Tie into links and prick each one a few times with a needle.
7. Poach them in water held just below a simmer, around 80°C, for 15 to 20 minutes, until a pricked sausage runs clear. A rolling boil splits them open, which is the usual failure.
8. Cool them, then roast at 200°C for 30 to 40 minutes, laying strips of bacon on top, until the skins are crisp.
9. Serve with lingonberry jam, sauerkraut and roast potatoes. Fresh pork blood is hard to source outside a butcher who kills on site; order it ahead, as frozen blood gives a grainier sausage.

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