The best black puds I've made so far....

Instead of using the recipe I shamelessly cribbed from John Desmond and used countless times, I decided to go off-road and really think about perfecting my very own recipe.

I did cut out many of the ingredients Desmond uses and my recipe is very simple and highly effective: A bit of ground pork, pancetta, blood, cereal, spices. That's it. I ran the mixture through the sausage machine into some natural casings instead of making a terrine, and boiled them for 15 mins in simmering water. They were dull grey when I pulled them out of the water and plunged them into iced water, but when I hung them for a couple of hours they began to take on a characteristic black colour, and the results were truly fabulous, even if I say so myself.
They looked like the stuff my dear old Mum used to buy from the butcher's shop in Cheshire. And, dare I say it, they tasted even better.