Recipe: Spaghetti Corkese (Spaghetti with Black Pudding & Tomato Sauce)

Spaghetti Cork-ay-say! Say it aloud in an Italian accent. It sounds good, doesn’t it? It IS good. So good. Quick and easy too
All jokes aside, a few years ago I was in my kitchen looking at a stash of black pudding that I had brought back from Ireland and thinking about how well the deep earthy flavour of the black pudding goes with fresh zingy tomatoes and I thought – OOOOOF – ding ding ding – that would be an ace pasta sauce.
Italians avert your eyes but everyone else keep reading, for this is delicious.
Black Pudding Makes for an Instant and Gorgeous Pasta Sauce
So, it is simple and takes less time than a proper bolognese, but you are rewarded with a rich depth of flavour that takes hours ordinarily. The richness of the black pudding adds instant ooomph, the chilli a little zing, and when you roast the sauce as I do here, it crumbles and each little chunk bathes in a tiny bath of tomato with a piquant tiny vinegar hit with a little sugar to tone it down a bit. When they caress the spaghetti it is a dreamy match.
Black pudding is something some people are afraid of. I was raised on it and love it, it is only blood folks, nothing to worry about. Full of iron and embracing of nose to tail eating, which is not only delicious but is a responsible way of eating.
Black pudding varies from country to country, I use an Irish one here. Two grace my kitchen counter. Rich deep artisanal black pudding from McCarthy’s of Kanturk when I can get my mucky paws on it. My local butcher and Budgen’s sell the lovely Clonakility Black Pudding which I used here. Made with beef blood instead of pigs blood it is also something that folks averse to pig for reasons of religion can eat. I, personally, do like a bit of pig.
So, here it is. Try it, even if you are afraid of it. I promise you will enjoy.
TIP: Leftover sauce makes a terrific toastie and is brilliant with eggs for breakfast.
Ingredients
- 280g Irish Black Pudding
- 2 x 400g tins good tomatoes
- 2 banana shallots, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 mild red chilli, de seeded finely chopped
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- sea salt
- handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1 x 500g box best spaghetti
Instructions
This looks delicious! My dad would love this – I was raised on the stuff, not the biggest fan, but my childhood home had a big farmhouse kitchen in which everything from black pudding to thick strips of back bacon from our local butcher was cooked up by my dad at breakfast. It’s a B&B too so my parents would share their culinary delights with people from all round the world.
Almost certain this dish would go down very well for dinner there!
Ahh the old Spag bolg, Its one of those meals that i can just keep on eating. Partnered with black pudding is a stroke of genius. I will be giving this a go very soon.
Enjoy! :)
Odd – does the black puddong remain whole? i.e. suasage shape? as it does not appear so in illustrations – pardon my culinary gauche!
chopped up and crumbled in cooking – as per the recipe! :)
Odd – recipe says ‘it crumbles’- so do I at times like this……
Uhm, ok
Looks awesome. I am leaving work right now to go buy black pudding and three bottles of red. It’s the only possible way to salvage a particularly crappy week.
Completely agree! And a nice spicy red will be lovely with this. I had had a particularly crap day when I made it and had lots of Bordeaux Superieur to wash it down!
I love Clonakilty black pudding almost as much as I love Italian food so for me this is a match made in heaven! Completely agree with “one man and his hob” – stroke of genius Niamh!!
Clonakilty also do a white pudding. over here i think some call it Hogs pudding, although that may just be a west country thing?
Yes, Irish white pudding is delish and I have some of the Clon one in the fridge. Tastes different to Hogs pudding which is more offal-y from memory. Give it a go! :)
Inspired stuff.
Thanks Tori :)
Black pudding can instantly make most savoury foods 100x better!!! We have great black pudding here in Lancashire (the home of black pudding?). Love the stuff and love pasta :)
You must try it then, Gary :)
This is a confession: I have never eaten black pudding. I am Italian (living in London..) and of course I love pasta: black pudding and spaghetti? Well, since I trust you, I will give it a try…and let you know. Rita
I see from your later comment that you tried – lovely :) Now, try with Irish black pudding! :)
I didn’t know that non-porky black pudding existed! Learn something new everyday. Will definitely have to try this.
You must :) Enjoy!
This sounds like a brilliant idea. I know many people that would love this. I am sure the Italians must have some type of pasta with Black Pudding in it, after all they love black pudding.
No idea but I would like to find out :) Worth a google!
I bought some Bury black pudding from the famous Bury market today (my local!) so I could make this tomorrow night. Very much looking forward to it!
The home of the black pudding, I am doing missionary work in the South of England, luckily we can get Bury black pudding.
You really are a dab hand at black pudding! I don’t even like the stuff and am tempted by this.
:)
I made it and, while it tasted good, it didn’t turn out anything like I expected. It was a little too unctuous for me!
I think I was expecting a tomatoey sauce with little nibby bits of black pudding whereas the black pudding completely dissolves into the tomatoes and gives a very dark appearance – it looked more like a game ragout to me.
Hi Kathy! I suspect that you didn’t use Irish black pudding? The English one is very different. Although game ragout sounds good to me too :) Thanks for coming back and letting me know.
From the selection of four black puddings in my local Superquinn, I used Clonakilty’s finest! Puzzled, as I followed the recipe to a T which is most unlike me.
Like many people, until the recall on pork products in 2008, I always thought that black pudding was a pork product.
I have just eaten a bowl of “spaghetti corkese” (first time I eat Black Pudding, as I wrote in my previous comment). I like how the flavours combine together creating an interesting new pasta sauce, but unfortunately, I am not a fan of the texture of Black Pudding……so this is not the right sauce for me. Regarding Italians and Black Pudding (comment posted by James B – Back to the Chopping Board), we used to have “sanguinaccio” (a sausage made with pig’s blood). It was used in cakes, but 20 years ago the sale of products with pig’s blood was prohibited. Since then we have used a chocolate sauce as a substitute, even if the flavour is somewhat different!!). Rita
Hi Rita, the texture of Irish black pudding is drier which is why I specify it here. Did you use that? They are so different. At least you tried and am sorry it wasn’t to your taste.
It was Scottish black pudding ( I did not find Irish black pudding….). Since the problem was the texture and not the flavour (I quite like the flavour!), I will try this recipe again with the right ingredient. Thanks. Rita
This looks fabulous and am considering whether to try to sneak this into family pasta as there are some amongst us who would not knowingly eat the stuff. Am wondering whether you have ever tried this with deliciously smoky morcilla? Also wondered what your thoughts were about removing the skin from the pudding as some have quite a tough and chewy casing.
Hi Sue. So sorry I am only picking up on this now. It has been a pretty crazy year. So, morcilla is a totally different product and it depends on which you use. You should remove the casing (you don’t need to do this with the Irish one), and perhaps add some barley or similar. Worth a shot. Could have a lot of fun with it.
What a great idea!
It took me a couple years after moving to the UK to get used to the idea of eating black pudding. When I finally did try it, I loved it. This recipe looks delicious.
In two weeks I finish a goal of eating and cooking nothing but Indian food. This will be one of the first recipes I make!
Thank you for sharing.
Dan
Dan, my pleasure. Enjoy it!
Great blogl! My blog this week is about food routines/ruts and Spag Bol tends to feature in many people’s diets, so it’s nice to see a hearty spaghetti recipe that’s a little bit different :)
Thanks – enjoy!
This was absolutely delicious Niamh.
Wonderful, Caro. Thanks for letting me know!
What a fantastic idea. I can take it or leave it when it comes to black pudding. I rarely get that excited when I see it on a plate of cooked breakfast. But this did excite me; I can taste it already and will definitely be attempting it soon.
Cheers, Matt! A huge compliment. Enjoy it :)
Mmmmmm Black Pudding, great idea. I dare say I will go back to my roots for Bury black pudding.
I would not eat it as a child, classically not even trying it.
Amazing a Spanish Security guard, off a camp site cooked it for me. This was a thank you for stopping a fight. I was amazed; it tasted nothing like what I had in my head. I now love black pudding.
Using it the way you have is a great idea.
Thank you. Hope you like it :)
I was sold by the blog title, absolutely love black pudding and pasta, so it’s a great idea to combine both and why not? Can’t wait to try this out at home!
Thanks Natacha! Enjoy :)
This sounds fab.Have you tried haggis lasagne? It really works!
Sounds wonderful but have never tried it :) Definitely a winter dish!
Finaly I made this recipe. It was very nice. Thank You.
Great to hear!
In the nicest possible way this is like the tastiest tinned spag bol eve made. If harvey nicks did tinned spaghetti this would be it :)
I take that as an enormous compliment (I think ;).
I made this tonight. Had a Clonakilty black pudding that needed using up, so searched for suitable recipes. This blog turned up in the results. Thank you! It was incredible!
Wonderful – thanks for coming back to let me know :)
Made this tonight with skinny strips of chorizo added, an intense meaty experience! Love black pudding, something really homely/traditional and trashy/indulgent at the same time! Unusual and fantastic – thanks x
Great to hear, Liz!
Made this tonight and totally impressed. Big black pudding fan and lucky enough to finally find some in rural SW France to try this recipe I’ve been excited about making since Feb! Sublime and right up my street, despite using Englsh and not Irish pudding.
Great to her, Louisa!
Finally made this for dinner this eve (with McCarthy’s black pudding)….FAB!!!
Hope you enjoyed Lisbon as much as I enjoyed your pics of the scrum my pastes de nata ;-)
Great to hear, Roisin! Lisbon was wonderful, thanks.
I am going to make this for dinner tomorrow as i’ve got some black pudding to use up! I can’t wait to try it my husband on the other hand is not looking forward to it as he doesn’t like black pudding, but so what he’ll either eat it or starve ha ha!
I like your style. I bet he will like it too! :)
He loved it! and so did I – blooming delicious!!! Ha and hubby called me “Nigel Slater making a simple supper with leftovers” so i’m taking it as a compliment ha ha
I have a chunk of Stornoway black pudding and was thinking of putting it into a tomato sauce. googled it 1st and came across your page. Away to make it now but using gnocchi instead of pasta I think.
And the leftover sauce got revamped the next day, with extra tomatoes. And poached a couple of eggs in it, all day breakfast ;-)
Perfect!
Absolutely delicious!!!!!!!
Does it work with White (Irish) Pudding at all?
Well in principle, it should, but I haven’t tried it. I will!
I looked for a long time for Corkese in my Italian dictionary….. derr..
Haha! Er, try your Italian-Cork dictionary :)
If I fry black pudding for breakfast I always add some spiced up tinned tomatoes. Never dreamt of ‘deconstructing’ one and using it as the meat part of a bolognaise sauce. I didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I switched in ketchup for the sugar/vinegar part of the dish, heresy maybe, but it’s turned out amazing. Thanks very much for the recipe, I’ll keep black pudding as an idea for other minced meat recipes :)
Oh great! So good to hear. Possibilities are endless when you view black pudding this way. I make croquettes with them too.