Mm Monday bloody Monday

Armed with that most marvelous medium of the Maillard process, duck fat, i set out to make this an offal Monday with Morcilla sausage and Madeira glazed pears.

Not everyone likes their Mondays i know, and blood doesn't really tick the box for a lot of people either, although I have been hearing about these teenage girls reading a lot of Vampire novels lately... Anyways, while I am compelled to agree with the first statement, blood is a very intriguing ingredient in food.

I decided to pair the blood sausage with something sweet because it is the traditional French thing to do. Not having any apples I grabbed a lonely pear from the fruit bowl, and since I was cooking a morcilla which is decidedly Spanish with its onions, garlic and cumin I decided to caramelize the pear slices in sugar and Madeira. Figuring the burnt notes on the fortified wine (which is probably my favorite dare I say) would go well with the amber of the sugar. Personally I like taking the caramel pretty far when doing this sort of fruit for food thing as a tiny hint of bitterness can really bring out savory flavors. That being said, don't burn the stuff, we don't want to waist any Madeira!



Cooking the morcilla is pretty straight forward and quick. Turn the oven on to 200C (about 375F) and put some fat in a pan over medium heat. Now if your a thrifty person, and who isn't when it comes to things like this, you saved that duck fat (So good!). Poke holes in the sausage to avoid blood splatter, might look cool on shows like Dexter, but in your kitchen...not so much. Season with salt and pepper and get those babies into the duck fat, you did save the duck fat didn't you?

Fry for about two minutes on each side and then park the pan in the oven for minutes. When done plate for a marvelously brown meal, no garnish!... actually I did really want to pair this with some parsley thin slices of onion and lemon juice to bring some acidity to the party, but no such luck this time.