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.
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.
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.
Scorch the botifarra for 5 minutes on both sides, then rest for a few minutes.
In the meantime, cook chopped garlic in the pan, then pour on stock with a little sherry vinegar and butter to make a jus.
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.
Sounds wonderful, unlike some delicacies the ancient Romans served. I love Spanish omelets with Andouille for breakfast. Oh, & Scotch eggs I’ve made a couple of times for brunch parties. Hmmmm….You always get me dreaming, Mad.
Thanks Judith – it sounds like you’d love these sausages!
Nyamiiiiiii!!! Nice post. Visca la botifarra d’ou!
Gracias hermana 😉
How interesting, MD. This is the first time I’ve heard of a sausage with egg in it. I wonder if it’s perishable? Also just recently cottoned on to Fat Thursday as a thing. Fat Tuesday, of course. When I first came across a mention of it, I thought it was a typo, lol. So I take it the Carnival celebrations start on Thursday, then extend through a long weekend through Tuesday? I like the idea… !
I’ve eaten the sausage from time to time over the last 30 years, but didn’t realise there was any connection to Lent until this year. Here’s the page showing the week’s events for next year, including the Burial of the Sardine on Ash Wednesday – normally a sardine barbecue on the beach in Barcelona.
Burial of the Sardine, I love it! Have to experience that at least once…
Ha ha – definitely!
Well this does sound like an interesting sausage with the eggs as an ingredient. You always manage to come up with something new.
Thanks Karen – they are incredibly delicious too!