This charcuterie specialty from Anjou comes in the form of large blood sausages with fatty bacon and cream, enriched with chard leaves, spinach and lettuce.
Difficulty:[usr 3]
Peel and finely chop the onions, put them in a bowl. Trim, wash and pat dry the chard, spinach and lettuce leaves. Chop them and add them to the onions. Season with salt and pepper, cover and let stand overnight. The next day, heat the lard in a casserole dish, add the minced meat and steam it over very low heat for a few minutes. Remove from the heat and put it back in the terrine.
In addition, cut the fatty bacon into very small cubes and melt it gently in a frying pan without letting it color. Then add it to the minced vegetables and mix, incorporating 1 pinch of cinnamon and 1 pinch of allspice. Then pour in, stirring, the fresh cream and the blood. Mix thoroughly and adjust the seasoning.
Pour this stuffing into the well-washed and rinsed pork casing, tied at one end. Tamp well and turn the casing on itself every 10 cm to mark the sections. Fill a large pot with water, bring to the boil, salt and drop in the gogues. Leave to simmer without broth for 30 minutes. When the gogues rise to the surface, poke them so they don't burst.
Carefully drain the gogues and let them cool completely. Put them in the refrigerator for 1 hour to firm them up, then cut them into very thick slices. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and place the slices of gogue in it, let them brown gently, turning them gently once and serve them with mashed potatoes.
The gogues can also be eaten cold with a salad with vinaigrette. For Easter, it is traditional to fry the slices of gogue with slices of pork liver.
Source:Les Cuisines Régionales de France. Anjou-Touraine. Editions du Fanal.
