Angolan chouriço
Smoked pork sausage, inherited from Portuguese colonisation, seasoned with paprika, garlic and piri-piri. It enters the feijoada angolana and the caldeirada de cabrito, two emblematic dishes of Angola.
| Lean pork shoulder | 650 g |
| Pork belly (with fat) | 350 g |
| Fine salt | 22 g |
| Sweet paprika (colorau) | 20 g |
| Piri-piri, fresh or dried, finely chopped | 5 g |
| Fresh garlic, crushed | 15 g |
| Ground black pepper | 3 g |
| Powdered bay | 1 g |
| Red wine | 40 ml |
| Wine vinegar | 10 ml |
| Hog casing (Ø 32–36 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Cut the meat into 2 cm cubes. Do not pass them through the mincer: the traditional chouriço is made of knife-cut pieces, not minced meat. Refrigerate.
- Seasoning: Mix the salt, the paprika, the piri-piri, the crushed garlic, the pepper, the bay, the red wine and the vinegar. Pour over the meats. Mix by hand to coat every piece. Cover and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for 48 to 72 hours, stirring once a day.
- Stuffing: Rinse the hog casings. Stuff the marinated meat firmly to form sausages 15 to 20 cm long. Tie the ends with twine.
- Drying: Hang the sausages in a cool, well-ventilated place for 24 to 48 hours.
- Smoking: Smoke over hardwood (oak, beech or, in the Angolan context, the local wood available) for 3 to 5 days at low temperature (15–20 °C). The smoking should be slow and prolonged. The sausages take on a dark red-brown colour and a firm texture.
- Storage and cooking: The smoked chouriço keeps for several weeks in the refrigerator. It is eaten cold, sliced, as an aperitif, or grilled, pan-fried, or incorporated into simmered dishes (feijoada, caldeirada, palm-oil stews). A spectacular presentation consists of dousing the sausage with aguardente (brandy) and flaming it at the table.
The Angolan chouriço is a smoked pork sausage, heir of the Portuguese chouriço, introduced to Angola over the four centuries of Portuguese colonisation (1575–1975). The basic composition is that of the metropolitan chouriço: knife-cut pieces of pork, marinated in red wine, paprika, garlic and vinegar, then stuffed into a natural casing and smoked for several days. The addition of piri-piri is what separates the Angolan version from the Iberian one.
The piri-piri has a colonial history. The chilli, native to the Americas, was introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. It acclimatised in East and southern Africa, where it took the name piri-piri, derived from the Swahili pilipili. The Portuguese settlers of Angola brought it into the mix of their chouriço, as they already used it for the frango grelhado (a Portuguese speciality of grilled chicken, traditionally cooked over embers) and for seafood. The Angolan chouriço is the product of a double transfer: the Portuguese sausage, imported into Africa, and the American chilli, imported via Portugal.
Artisanal production, concentrated in the farms and butchers of the settlers and the Luandan bourgeoisie, was heavily disrupted by the civil war (1975–2002). It survived within the communities of retornados and the diaspora in Portugal, Brazil and South Africa. Since the end of the war, production has resumed in Luanda and the coastal towns.
The chouriço is an ingredient of the feijoada angolana (a stew of white beans with chicken and chouriço, cooked in palm oil, distinct from the Brazilian feijoada), of the caldeirada de cabrito (a traditional Portuguese and Angolan stew of kid (cabrito), potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, white wine and piri-piri), of the molho de tomate (tomato sauce) and finally of the ovo e chouriço, a popular breakfast. It is also grilled over embers. It belongs to the network of Portuguese sausages exported during colonisation, which includes the Goan chouriço and the chouriço de Maputo, both of which are treated in this book.
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