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Midi-Pyrénées
A small brown patty sizzled in the pan, born of still-warm poultry blood — Sanquette quietly tells of the consummate Gascon art of wasting nothing on the farm.
Traditional dish from Midi-Pyrénées.
The origins of Sanquette are intimately bound to two fundamental practices of rural life in the South-West: ritual slaughter and the necessity of self-sufficiency. The dish is rooted in the great winter tradition of the tue-cochon, the time when the animal was slaughtered to feed the family for the entire year; blood, the most perishable product of all, had to be used without delay. Many blood-based dishes were thus traditionally eaten just before Lent, allowing all the fresh produce from the slaughter to be consumed swiftly — an expression of that 'everything is good' principle that shaped peasant cooking long before the fight against food waste became a modern concern.
Sanquette differs from boudin noir, which also uses blood as its primary ingredient but blends it with fat and onions before piping it into a casing to be poached: Sanquette is a quicker preparation, a simple scramble of blood that coagulates directly in the frying pan alongside its aromatics.
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While the dish is found across several livestock-rearing areas of the broad South-West, its most famous and codified variations bear their clear imprint. In the Gers, where it remains one of Occitanie's most popular recipes, Sanquette is prepared by garnishing freshly gathered poultry blood with garlic, shallot, parsley, salt, pepper and, depending on the household, pieces of ventrêche, before cooking the resulting patty in the pan once the blood has curdled. In Quercy and Périgord, lands of foie gras and confits, it is traditionally made with duck or goose blood, cooked in fat from the same poultry, which lends it a distinct Gascogne-Périgord flavour. Further south, in Aveyron and the Cévennes, lands with a strong pastoral tradition, Sanquette can be prepared with pork or ewe's blood: more rustic, generously seasoned with garlic and chopped parsley, it sometimes resembles a very firm patty, or even a variation mixing the blood with Swiss chard.
Long threatened with extinction, Sanquette is today enjoying a revival within a culinary landscape that values authenticity and traceability: several chefs are restoring it to a place of honour, as a stuffing base or a refined patty, in tribute to the zero-waste cooking of their grandparents.
Aspect
Small, round and flat patty (or crêpe), brown in colour, pan-fried until browned.
Goût
Rich, earthy and heavily ferruginous, delivering a powerful umami flavour.
Texture
Soft and creamy, reminiscent of very fine scrambled eggs — never the drier texture of an overcooked piece of liver.
the blood is filtered to remove any clots or impurities before being used.
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Sanquette is enjoyed hot, at the start of a meal. Its rich, ferruginous taste calls for accompaniments that soften it: potatoes sautéed in duck fat with garlic and parsley, or simple garlic croûtons to absorb its juices. On the wine front, a red with character but little oak — such as a Cahors or a Gaillac from the South-West — pairs well without being overwhelmed by the dish's robustness; a light, fruity red from the Loire is equally suitable.
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