Krvavica
Blood sausage of the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia). Each country, each valley has its recipe and its proportions.
| Fresh pig’s blood | 400 ml |
| Cooked rice or buckwheat | 250 g |
| Cooked pig’s head meat, chopped | 200 g |
| Fatback, diced | 100 g |
| Fried onion | 100 g |
| Fine salt | 15 g |
| Black pepper | 3 g |
| Dried marjoram | 3 g |
| Sweet paprika | 5 g |
| Hog casing (Ø 40–45 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Cook the rice or buckwheat, then leave to cool. Fry the onion and the diced fatback. Chop the head meat.
- Mixing: Beat the blood to loosen it. Add all the ingredients and the seasonings. Mix well.
- Stuffing: Stuff without packing too tightly. Form portions of 15–20 cm.
- Poaching: Cook for 35 to 45 minutes in water at 75–80 °C.
- Cooling: Leave to cool slowly in the liquid.
- Serving: Grill or fry until the outside is crisp.
The name krvavica derives from the Slavic krv, ‘blood’, a root common to the blood sausages across the Slavic space: krvavica in Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian; krvavička in Slovak. Its making belongs to the svinjokol or klanje svinja, the communal winter pig slaughter, an event the zone’s introductory chapter describes in detail.
What sets the krvavica apart from most Western European blood sausages is the use of cooked, then chopped, pig's head meat in the forcemeat. The French, British or German puddings, as a rule, use only blood, fat and a grain. The grain itself varies across the Balkan regions: rice, buckwheat or maize meal.
The regional variants reflect the influences that have crossed the Balkans. In Slovenia, maize meal sometimes replaces the rice in the Primorska region, under Venetian influence. In Dalmatian Croatia, smoked paprika dominates. In southern Serbia, some versions work in dried mint, an Ottoman legacy. In Bosnia, marjoram is more present. None of these variants is protected by a PGI.
It is eaten grilled or fried, with bread, raw onions and kajmak (a creamy fresh cheese). It appears at the svinjokol meals alongside other charcuterie pieces prepared the same day.
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