Morcilla Argentina
Blood sausage of the Argentine asado, milder than its European cousins. It is grilled over the embers as a starter, while the beef cuts, which take longer to cook, finish cooking.
| Fresh pig’s blood | 500 ml |
| Pork fat, diced | 250 g |
| Onion | 150 g |
| Fine salt | 15 g |
| Ground black pepper | 2 g |
| Oregano | 2 g |
| Ground cumin | 1 g |
| Sweet pepper | 5 g |
| Cow casing (Ø 45–55 mm) | — |
- Preparing the onion: Chop it finely, then fry it in pork fat until well golden. Leave to cool.
- Preparing the fat: Cut it into 1 cm cubes.
- Mixing: Beat the blood to loosen it. Add the onion, the diced fat and all the seasonings. Mix well.
- Stuffing: Fill the cow casings without packing too tightly. Form puddings of 15–20 cm. Tie well.
- Cooking: Cook in water at 80 °C for 40–50 minutes.
- Cooling: Leave to cool in the liquid. Refrigerate.
- Grilling: Grill over embers until the skin is crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes.
The morcilla argentina descends from the Spanish morcilla brought by Andalusian and Castilian settlers, but it evolved into a simpler product. Where the morcilla de Burgos rests on rice and pimentón, and the morcilla de León on onion and cumin, the Argentine version keeps only salt, pepper, oregano and a discreet sweet pepper. This economy of spices follows the same logic as the chorizo criollo, letting the raw material speak.
The composition varies little from one province to another. Fresh pig’s blood, diced fat and long-fried onion form the base. The criolla version incorporates cooked rice, which absorbs the blood and adds weight to the texture. Some butchers in Buenos Aires and Córdoba add raisins or walnuts, an inheritance from the nineteenth-century waves of Italian immigration.
In the Argentine asado, the morcilla is served as an entrada before the beef cuts, alongside chorizo criollo and achuras (offal). It comes to the grill after a quick searing over high heat, which cracks the skin without liquefying the inside. This mode of serving, crisp skin over a still-warm creamy inside, is universal in the Argentine and Uruguayan parrillas.
In Spain, the comparison between the local and Argentine morcillas is a recurrent subject of conversation between the two communities: the Argentine version is perceived as milder and less complex by Spanish palates, and, conversely, is appreciated for that same mildness by those who discover it through the asado.
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