Blood sausage with pork blood, buckwheat or rice, garlic, marjoram — stuffed into hog casings, boiled then pan-fried. Harvest-pig butchering staple.
Tied to autumn pig-slaughter (svynokol) tradition — the blood had to be used same-day before it spoiled, so krovyanka was made first, before the bacon was salted. Documented in 17th-century Kyiv-Mohyla Academy household manuals as cellar provision food.
The pig-killing day in Carpathian villages still follows Andrew's Day (December 13) — Ukrainian ethnographer Roman Kyrchiv documented this in his 1978 Etnohrafiya Ukrayiny as a calendar fixture in Hutsul and Boyko communities through the Soviet period.
Mahogany-dark slices, rough cut, slightly crumbly when fried so the edges crisp. Iron-rich, gamey, sweet from buckwheat, sharp from raw garlic and marjoram. Served with sauerkraut and a shot of horilka. Two slices is a serving.
Blood must be stirred constantly while cooling to prevent clotting — a single missed minute and the texture turns rubbery. Stuffed loose, not tight; the buckwheat expands during boiling and tight casings burst. Boil at 80°C, never higher.
Variations
Hutsul mountain version uses sheep blood and pearl barley; Polissia woodlands version adds dried wild mushroom and skips the garlic. Lviv butcher Bachevsky has revived a 1900s recipe with allspice and beef-blood blend, sold at Halytskyi Rynok.
On the Palate
Where Krovyanka sits in the Ukrainian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8
How it's made
5 steps · 40 min active + 58 min waiting
- 130 min
Cook 200 g buckwheat or rice; cool.
Watch outCook the grain just to done, then cool it fully before mixing — warm grain starts to set the blood and turns the filling rubbery.
- 210 min
Mix 500 ml pork blood + cooked grain + 200 g rendered fat + 4 minced garlic + 1 tbsp marjoram + 1 tsp salt + pepper.
- 320 min
Stuff into rinsed hog casings; tie into 15 cm sausages.
Watch outStuff loosely, leaving slack in the casing — the grain swells as it poaches and a tightly packed link bursts.
- 430 min
Poach in 80 °C water 30 min until firm; do not boil.
Watch outHold the water at a bare 80°C, never boiling — a hard boil splits the casings before the sausage sets.
- 58 min
Cool; pan-fry slices in butter until crispy; serve with mustard.
Watch outFry the slices until the edges crisp and darken — that crust is where blood sausage turns rich instead of soft and flat.
