Botifarra d’ou

botifarra d’ou

Botifarra d’ou (butifarra de huevos in Spanish) is a Catalan sausage made with pork and eggs. This is a variation on the regular meat botifarra, created about three or four hundred years ago, specifically to be eaten on dijous gras (jueves lardero in Spanish) – Fat Thursday, the Thursday before Lent (at the start of Carnival). Botifarra d’ou is made by combining pork sausage meat (typically shoulder, bacon and head) with eggs, salt and pepper and occasionally truffles. The mixture goes into natural sausage casings and is poached for 75 minutes at 80ºC – see here for a video of the process.

uncooked botifarra

Botifarra sausages date back to the time of the Romans. They are probably related to Linguiça Calabresa and Cumberland sausages. Botifarra come in many forms, the regular one above contains pork and seasoning, but they can be made with tongue, ears and nose, blood, rice, truffles, etc. They can be sold raw or cured.

butifarra de huevo

Botifarra d’ou is typically sliced and served cold with pa amb tomàquet or chopped and cooked in a truita (tortilla), but it’s also delicious cooked a la brasa (over hot charcoal). The nearest thing to charcoal in a home kitchen, on a chilly March day, is griddle pan. Heat this until it starts to smoke.

scorched

Scorch the botifarra for 5 minutes  on both sides, then rest for a few minutes.

jus

In the meantime, cook chopped garlic in the pan, then pour on stock with a little sherry vinegar and butter to make a jus.

cortada

When cut open the Botifarra d’ou has an omelet like texture and tastes distinctly of egg and sausage. I saw a fabulous video (a few of years ago), where the Meat Hook butchers, Ben and Brent, created a breakfast sausage, but in reality, the Catalans were several centuries ahead of them!

Serve the Botifarra d’ou with seasonal vegetables and a glass of Fosc – a natural vi negre from Alt Penedès.