Black pudding in recipes

[lancashire lass]

I bought a black pudding over the Christmas period on a whim (one of those - oooh, long time since I had that) - thank goodness it has a long shelf life but that expiry date is fast approaching and it is still sitting in the fridge ...

My only experience of black pudding is a cooked breakfast (bacon, fried egg, fried mushrooms, grilled tomato and fried black pudding slices) but I was hoping to use it in a different meal. Online searches come up with some weird and wonderful recipes but always an ingredient which needs to be sought out rather than what is in the kitchen cupboard already.

Meanwhile, I found the Bury Black Pudding site (the brand of black pudding sitting in my fridge) and they have a lot of suggestions. I get the impression that it goes well with mashed potato, mustard, apple, cabbage, in various sausage rolls or with pork, meatballs and eggs (poached or fried, or Scotch eggs), with porridge oats, lentils, warm salad and so on. A bit more versatile than expected. I'm still looking for simple - maybe something like pan fried with colcannon with apple and mustard ...

[lancashire lass]

I get the impression that it goes well with mashed potato, mustard, apple, cabbage, in various sausage rolls or with pork, meatballs and eggs (poached or fried, or Scotch eggs), with porridge oats, lentils, warm salad and so on. A bit more versatile than expected. I'm still looking for simple - maybe something like pan fried with colcannon with apple and mustard ...

forgot to mention Brussel sprouts. And so my dinner last night was a bit of a concoction ...

I have recently been enjoying swede and potato mash with butter and lots of pepper for a variety of meals (gravy type such as stewed steak, sausage with mushrooms, even battered fish portions (with cheese added to the mash)) so I decided to go down that route, with added ingredients.

So in a pan went the swede, potato, a few Brussel sprouts, some shredded Savoy cabbage and ... a chopped apple. Meanwhile I used the air fryer to cook a couple of slices of bacon and some slices of black pudding - then chopped them up and put on one side. In a frying pan, a diced small onion and a shallot with a little oil until just cooked.

When draining the cooking water from the swede and potato etc pan, some went into the frying pan and a small handful of peas was thrown in. After about 5 minutes cooking, a dab of butter and some milk was added with some creamy pepper sauce mix and brought to the boil to thicken. The bacon and black pudding pieces were added at the end of cooking. The swede/potato + were mashed with butter and plenty of black pepper.

So the dinner ended up as a mashed mix with the sauce drizzled over.

Result: was surprisingly edible but I'll admit odd. The only bacon I had was smoked and I think that might have overwhelmed the flavour of the black pudding.