When Buttercross was in its infancy, we employed an incredibly experienced butcher to help us within the industry, however for all his experience he was shall we say, a slightly eccentric character. As we looked to expand our product range he was adamant that Black pudding would be our next best seller and he knew just the recipe. He went on to describe his time when he was ‘just a lad’ completing his butchery apprenticeship, and used to be tasked with literally jumping into a huge tub and mixing the pudding ingredients as they came down chutes to him. He told us this was the way that proper black pudding was made.
We weren’t too keen on bringing an apprentice in to swim around in a big Black pudding barrel, but we were very interested in making pudding to a very specific traditional recipe, so we got our normal mixer firing and set about trying to decipher our maverick butcher’s ramblings about how it was done in the good old days. On a cold Monday morning after a few weeks and many a batch of ‘nearly but not quite’ puddings, we were starting to get a bit despondent until a triumphant butcher flew through the door after a weekend epiphany. ‘I’ve got it’ he said as he rushed into the factory and started mixing the first batch of what is now our famous Black Pudding. He’d remembered the secret ingredient of a recipe that is still known by only a few of us to this day.
Since then we’ve been proud to supply over 32 tonnes of Black Pudding, in sticks, slices and even as an ingredient in sausages to our suppliers across the country and we’re even prouder to hear people tell us that it ‘tastes just like it used to’….
Keep an eye out on our Social Media, as in the coming weeks, we will announce our entirely Gluten Free Black Pudding. Making life easier in the kitchen with allergens, but with no difference in taste or texture!