Spicy Habanero Sanguinaccio Dolce

Sanguinaccio Dolce is a traditional Italian dessert from Naples, usually served during the festivities of Carnevale. This rich, dulcet pudding is customarily made from pig’s blood, milk, chocolate, and sweetened with a bit of sugar, though other ingredients occasionally appear, such as dried fruit and nuts.

I stumbled upon the dessert on Atlas Obscura and my interest was naturally piqued. Initially, I followed traditional recipes to get a good feel for it. While the classic composition is lovely, I wanted to spin my own version, using cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate. While it definitely changes the texture, making it a little less rich and creamy, it gives more space for the blood to shine through. The heat from the habanero also brings out the flavours of both the cocoa and blood.

Ingredients:

250ml full fat milk
500ml blood (traditionally pig, but cow can be used as well)
2 Tbsp raw, unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbsp dark cane sugar (or to taste)
1 package of vanilla sugar (or a little vanilla essence / raw vanilla)
1 tsp habanero pepper flakes
1 tsp cinnamon
2/3 tsp ginger
pinch of salt

Method:

Sieve the blood to remove any clots.
Put the milk and blood in a saucepan over very low heat.
Add the cocoa, cinnamon, ginger and habanero pepper flakes.
Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly and progressively increasing the heat until the mixture is dark brown and begins to thicken.
Serve hot in a mug.

Notes and Tips:

It is extremely important to bring up the temperature slowly. Start with very low heat, whisk constantly, and progressively bring up the temperature until the mixture thickens.

Drink it fast! It’s best taken steaming hot and cools down pretty quickly.

It goes very well with different sorts of biscuits.