Top butcher creates innovative pudding with seaweed

Creative Northern Irish butcher Pat O'Doherty has embraced the latest healthy eating trend by developing an innovative black pudding.

O'Doherty, managing director of family owned O'Doherty's Fine Meats in Enniskillen, county Fermanagh, has created a black pudding with ingredients including three different varieties of edible seaweed harvested from the Atlantic coastline.

The core ingredient in the new black pudding that he's created is his own multi-award-winning Fermanagh Black Bacon, a bacon from his own free-range pigs that's cured using a special recipe.

"I decided to develop the new pudding because seaweed is now seen as a healthy and nutritious food, often referred to as a superfood. It's packed full of vitamins and minerals.

"I've selected three types of seaweed from the fresh and clean Atlantic waters along the Irish coastline and blended these with Black Bacon and other traditional ingredients including Irish oats and herbs. The new pudding has a very rich and spicy flavour and is proving extremely popular with all those who have sampled it."

The Atlantic coastline is rich in seaweeds such as Carrageen Moss, Dulse and Kelp.

He's named the new pudding after the Wild Atlantic Way, a major tourism trail that runs across the west of Ireland from Cork to Donegal and is being promoted extensively outside Ireland, especially in the US and Europe, by Tourism Ireland.

O'Doherty is also the driving force behind the annual Black Pudding Festival - now entering its fifth year - that's held around Enniskillen every autumn and is supported by chefs and restaurants throughout the area.

The event, unique on the island of Ireland, attracts puddings from many parts of the world and also features a competition for enthusiasts with their own recipes and foods made using the product.

"The new Wild Atlantic Way Black Pudding is aimed at lovers of the food including visitors who come to Enniskillen as part of their journey along this important and hugely successful tourism trail. It encourages them to experience the great taste of black pudding, one of Fermanagh's most traditional food products.

"Our annual Black Pudding Festival is also becoming a significant event in the tourism calendar and we expect a great many visitors from abroad this year," he adds. "We've a host of international food writers and bloggers coming to enjoy the festival."

O'Doherty, a former UK Butcher of the Year, gained international acclaim and business from top chefs when he launched Fermanagh Black Bacon and Traditional Fermanagh Corned Beef, both using curing recipes that the successful butcher had revived following extensive research into the heritage of food processing in Ireland.