Some time ago I left you a savory pie, which I enjoyed a lot during the process, and I knew it would be a type of preparation that I would repeat in the future. It is true that it is one of those recipes that requires a little more time and patience than others, but once you finish it… You feel a great satisfaction. Today I leave you with this Savory black pudding, pear and pine nuts pie that, I already tell you, I know you are going to enjoy a lot. In all senses.
Not only during the elaboration process, which is very entertaining, but also when it comes to enjoy it. Please, how wonderful. At home we liked it very, very much. Of course, you have to like blood sausage/black pudding, because otherwise it is not a preparation for you. Although, of course, you can always version the filling with other ingredients if you wish.
This recipe was originally going to be an empanada. But, as often happens to me, I changed my mind as I was making it. I thought that in a savory pie format, decorated, to serve it cut in pieces, would be a very good option. So that’s how I did it.
Savory black pudding, pear and pine nuts pie.
The dough for this recipe is the same that I used for the curried potato and spinach pie. I really like the way this dough works, how well we can shape it, not to mention how well it withstands the baking process while keeping its shape intact.
To get a good result in the dough and after baking, I advise you not to skip any step of the process. Including the overnight rest in the refrigerator, this is very important to make sure that the shape is perfect.
The filling may not be suitable for everyone. Not because it is not good, which in my opinion is extraordinary, but because you must like the main element. In my case, I chose rice black pudding and I think it was the right choice. We achieve a more balanced filling, a quantity of black pudding and rice, together with poached vegetables, pear and pine nuts.
If we were to use onion black pudding, it is possible that when it comes to eating the pie, the result would be much heavier.
What is black pudding?
Burgos black pudding is a meat product or sausage typical of Burgos gastronomy. After being stuffed, it undergoes a cooking process, made from rice and pork blood. To the main ingredients are also added onion horcal (with a mild, slightly sweet and spicy flavor), lard, salt, pepper, paprika, oregano and spices. Tradition says that it should be: “bland, fatty and spicy”.
The correct proportions of a Burgos black pudding would be these:
- Horcal onion: more than 35%
- Rice: between 15% al 30%
- Blood: more than 12%
- Lard: between 10% al 22%
- Salt and spices: 5%
This is a sausage made without meat, in this case coagulated blood, which is mixed and spiced with the rest of the ingredients until a homogeneous mixture is achieved. Once the mixture is ready, the sausage is stuffed with the help of a stuffing machine. These are then tied and delimited with the help of a string or staple.
After this process, they are subjected to a thermal process. The blood sausages are immersed in boiling water at 212ºF/100ºC for 30 minutes. After the cooking process, the heat process must be cut off and they must be cooled. For this purpose, airing chambers are used, where they are hung and the outside of the black puddings are allowed to dry. Once this process is finished, they are packaged and made available to customers.
Why is Burgos associated with black pudding?
The elaboration of “Morcilla de Burgos” is historically related to the home pig slaughter. In the twentieth century, Burgos black pudding began to be made in workshops and factories, following traditional methods and trying to maintain the essence of the recipes that have passed from generation to generation.
Burgos black pudding has specific qualities that make it different from those obtained in other areas of Spain, the main one being the use of horcal onion. According to the oral tradition concerning the slaughter, which is passed down from father to son, and which still persists in many villages, the best onion for the preparation of black pudding is the regional variety known as horcal onion, also called matancera or matanza because of its close relationship with this activity. This variety of onion is obtained during the autumn and early winter months, coinciding with the slaughtering season.
It is a sweet onion, easy to chop, with a high fiber and water content, about 92%, and with high retention capacity.
The percentage of onion used to make Burgos black pudding directly influences three physicochemical parameters: pH, total sugars and total dietary fiber (TDF), as well as influencing the number and intensity of volatile compounds, especially sulfur compounds that give the black pudding its particular smell and spicy flavor, which differentiates it from other rice puddings made in Spain.
Once again, I would like to thank Kanstantsin Larkou for his wonderful creations. It was thanks to him that I came to this kind of pies, so incredibly beautiful, and thanks to him that I started to make this kind of attractive pies at home. The design I leave you today is inspired by this pie he made.
Recipe Savory black pudding, pear and pine nuts pie
DOUGH:- 525 g traditional French flour, a flour with 11-12% protein can be used
- 150 g cold water
- 65 g egg
- 125 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 10 g sugar
- 10 g salt
- 840 g rice blood sausage, approximately 3 black puddings
- 2 large conference pears + 45 g unsalted butter
- 1 sweet onion, large, diced
- 1 Italian sweet red pepper, diced
- 45 g pine nuts
- olive oil
- salt
- beaten egg + pinch of salt
- kneader
- roller pin
- scraper
- sharp knife or pizza cutter, scissors
- flower cutters with ejector (these are which I used)
- perforated tray
- silpat, teflon or baking paper
- pastry brush
- large frying pan
- colander
Instructions
Prepare the dough.
- Beat the egg in a bowl.
- Dissolve, more or less, the salt and sugar in the water, pour into the egg and beat again. Set aside.
- In the bowl of the stand mixer, add the butter and smooth with the flat beater.
- Add the egg mixture together with a third of the flour and mix.
- Once it has been integrated, continue adding the rest of the flour while mixing.
- Switch to the hook and knead until a homogeneous dough is obtained.
- We can continue kneading in the mixer until we have a smooth and soft dough or we can transfer it to a work surface and finish kneading by hand.
- Once we have the dough at this point, flatten it slightly, cover it with film and leave it to rest for 2-3 hours.
Cook pears.
- Wash the pears under cold water and dry them. Peel and cut into squares.
- In a large frying pan, add the butter and place over medium heat. Let it get warm.Add the pear and cook over medium heat for 12-15 minutes. Our purpose will be that it loses a little water and acquires a slightly soft texture, but we do not want to overcook it and make it puree.
- Remove from the pan and place in a colander so that it continues to release juices while we prepare the rest of the filling.
Poach onion and red pepper.
- In the same pan, it is not necessary to remove the butter, add a little olive oil. Enough to poach the vegetables well.
- Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes at medium heat. Add the red pepper and cook for 15-20 minutes. We should not brown them, but poach them. The onion should become transparent.
Add the rest of ingredients.
- Once we have the vegetables ready, incorporate the blood sausage (in which we will have previously removed the skin and cut into pieces).
- Cook, stirring from time to time, until we manage to obtain a filling in which the black pudding has a less firm consistency, besides noticing that it is perfectly integrated with the rest of the ingredients.
- At that moment, incorporate the previously cooked pear together with the pine nuts. Mix to evenly distribute all the ingredients.
- Remove from the heat and let the filling cool completely.
Roll out the dough to shape the first part of the pie.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Leave the half we are not going to work with covered with film.
- Stretch one of the pieces on a Teflon sheet, trying to give it a rectangular shape with dimensions of approximately 35 x 28 cm. The thickness of the dough should be about 2 - 2.5 mm.
- Place black pudding filling in the central part of the stretched dough. Flatten a little and give it a rectangular or other shape of your choice. The central part of the filling will be domed. The size of the filling on the dough is approximately 25 x 15 cm.
Roll out the other piece of dough and cover the pie.
- Roll out the other piece of dough in the same way as the first one.
- Cut some decorative herringbone-shaped cuts in the central part. These will serve to decorate, as well as allow the pie to "breathe" during baking.
- Carefully place the dough on the cake and adjust to center the central part and the edges. Be careful when holding the dough, the ideal is to distribute the weight between both hands, otherwise the dough will stretch and lose its shape.
- Cut the excess dough from the side edges, trying to leave a little dough so that the filling does not come out and the pie is well sealed. The cuts at the ends will be used for the top decoration.
- Seal the sides and, if desired, we can create a decorative pattern like the one shown in the video or another of your choice.
- Decorate the top of the pie. In my case I used these cutters with ejector to make flowers, the leaves I made by hand.
- If any of the pieces does not stick to the dough, instead of pressing the piece to glue it, we will use a little water as glue.
- Once we have the pie decorated, refrigerate it uncovered until the next day. In my case it was around 20 hours to 39ºF/4ºC.
Bake.
- Preheat the oven to 374ºF/190ºC with fan.
- Brush the savoury pastry with egg beaten with salt. Try to cover the entire surface of the pastry, but avoid getting too much egg in the holes. The final result would be unattractive.
- Bake at medium height, preferably on a perforated tray, for 5 minutes. Reduce to 355ºF/180ºC with fan and bake for a further 45 minutes.
- Remove and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Serve.
Notes
- The flour I used is a traditional French flour, so I can't tell you how strong it is because it doesn't specify it. It is a flour with 11-12% protein, so you can use a flour with similar characteristics.
- The amount of water in the dough will have to be adjusted according to the flour you use, it is possible that in some cases it may require a little more water. The dough should be pleasant to the touch, not dry or hard.
- Beat the egg with the water, salt and sugar, which helps these elements to integrate into the dough and not form lumps (the latter due to the egg's texture).
- We must let the dough rest so that the gluten relaxes and, in this way, we can stretch it and work with it without any problems.
- I recommend using rice blood sausage instead of onion blood sausage. To my liking, the pie will be a little more balanced when it is eaten.
- If you do not like pears, you can use apples instead. As well as the pine nuts, you can omit them or replace them with another nut.
- The decorations can be to your liking, I have left this suggestion, but you can change them if you wish.
- To cut the flowers with the cutter with ejector, you must press them very well and press the ejector several times so that the dough comes out on its own. If you pull them out by hand, you can unintentionally make them lose their shape.
- t is VERY IMPORTANT to leave the filled and decorated pastry in the refrigerator overnight. That way the dough will be very hard the next day and will not lose its shape during baking.
- Adding a little salt to the egg for brushing will help it to liquefy a little, which will allow us to brush the pie and decorations much better.
- Be careful not to brush too much egg into the hollows or flowers, or the end result will not be as attractive.
- Baking with fan helps the surface to dry faster, which is another plus point for our pie to keep its shape after baking, as well as achieving a beautiful uniform colour.
- The filling can be changed to your liking if you wish. I remind you that I left you another savory pie of this type, made with curried potatoes and spinach.
- The pie should be left to cool before eating, or at least let it temper.
- It can be kept in an airtight container or wrapped in aluminium foil or film, always refrigerated, for 7 days.
