Möpkenbrot — Germany

Möpkenbrot, also written Möppkenbrot, is a cooked pork sausage built on the same base as blood sausage, but sweetened and lightened with grain, chopped apples and raisins. The fruit gives it a mild sweetness and a lighter red-brown color than plain blood sausage, while a generous share of rye or wheat flour gives it more bulk. The sausage belongs to Westphalia in northwestern Germany, where butchers in the region still make it as part of their range of cooked sausages. An East Westphalian version goes by the name Wöpkenbrot. Bacon, pig's head meat (jowl and skin), pork rind and pork blood are combined with grated rye or wheat flour, diced apples and raisins into a thick dough, which is stuffed or shaped and gently boiled. Once cooked and cooled, it is sliced and pan-fried until the surface browns and crisps, a step that also firms the interior enough to hold its shape on the plate. Unlike plain black pudding, Möpkenbrot carries a noticeable fruit sweetness from apple and raisin and uses proportionally more flour, giving it a denser, bread-like crumb. In Westphalia it is served with cooked turnip greens, and the East Westphalian Wöpkenbrot is sometimes paired with Stippgrütze, a barley groat sausage enriched with offal and cooked in broth.