Mutura is a traditional sausage dish among the people of central Kenya, although recently its popularity has spread throughout the country. It is made with meat, blood and spices, all of which are enclosed in the animal's intestines or stomach. In Kenya, fillings include fresh minced goat, beef and lamb, fat and red onion. There are two things you need to know about this delicious dish: it is tasty and yes, it really is a sausage made of blood.
In its most basic form, black pudding contains onions and some herbs and spices cooked together with pork, to which blood is added. The right amount of blood and a complete mix are important so that blood clots do not form in the sausage, which can cause an unpleasant experience for the diner. The blood of any animal, including poultry, can be used to make sausage, although pig and cow blood is more commonly used. Interestingly, blood sausages have been a quintessential part of several food cultures around the world and are mainly prepared on special occasions.
This type of sausage has a short shelf life when fresh, so it is often accompanied by a traditional post-slaughter meal, which includes other delicate meats, such as liver. Before using it, it must be stirred again and filtered through a cheese cloth, otherwise the sausage may contain blood clots. In a sausage that cannot be cut into slices, the selection of meat is of minor importance, after all, a large part of the sausage is a filling. Over the years, blood sausages, popularly known as black pudding, are made by adjusting the fillings and using different preparation methods.
Of course, other ingredients are used to make the sausage, and they vary from country to country, from meat to oats to barley. From the United Kingdom to Africa and Asian countries, there are popular culinary traditions associated with the consumption of sausages. Using more than twice the amount of broth relative to the weight of the barley will cause the filling material to be overcooked, soft and stained, affecting the texture, cutability and appearance of the sausage. Black pudding that can be cut and often eaten cold contains less than 10% blood and is much lighter in color than sausages that cannot be cut into slices (30 to 60% of the blood), which will be darker. The history of blood sausages dates back to 800 BC when a mention of black pudding was found in Homer's classic saga “The Odyssey”.
