Halloween Blood Pancakes Recipe Blodplattar, Verilettu

These blood pancakes or blodplättar (in Sweden), verilätty or verilettu (in Finland) are not a Halloween food but they're a traditional Nordic delicacy. They tastes very similar to black pudding with a bone marrow flavour to them. They are very rich and a few went a long way but they were actually quite nice and salty. I served with a cranberry sauce to give them a touch of sweetness. They actually turn a dark brown or black when done giving them more of an interesting look and could fool people at your Halloween party into eating them, if you wished to ;)

I got the idea to make these real blood pancakes while chatting to Mr NQN's aunt Paivi who told us of having blood pancakes growing up back home in Finland. I begged her for the recipe and she gave me not one but two, one from her friend Heli whose daughter happens to live in Sydney whom Heli was visiting at the time. Heli and her daughter Kristiina loaned me a Finnish pancake pan which makes all of the pancakes the perfect size and is also non stick. The blood? Well yes it is real pig's blood and you can order it from your butcher-just give them a few days to get it in.

Blood Pancakes

Recipe by Heli Berry

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

• 300ml/10.6ozs calf or pig blood

• 300ml/10.6ozs beer or milk

• 1 egg

• 1/2 onion (fry in little butter till golden and cooled)

• 100g/3.5ozs butter melted

• 100g/3.5ozs barley flour (you can use wheat flour instead for both of these flours)

• 100g/3.5ozs rye flour

• 2 teaspoons salt

• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper

• 1/2 tsp marjoram

• butter for frying

• cranberry sauce for serving

Step 1 - In a large jug mix the blood, egg, beer or milk, onion and butter and then add to dry ingredients in a large bowl and fry in buttered pan with butter (the mixture is quite runny). With blood you need to mix fairly vigorously so that it doesn't set. Serve with cranberry sauce