Chouriço Português
Portuguese smoked sausage with paprika and garlic, larger than the linguiça. Its colonial diffusion gave rise to variants in Brazil, Goa, Angola, and Mozambique, all of which are present in this book.
| Lean pork shoulder | 600 g |
| Fatty pork belly | 400 g |
| Fine salt | 25 g |
| Sweet paprika (colorau) | 25 g |
| Hot paprika (optional) | 5 g |
| Fresh garlic, crushed | 20 g |
| Red or white wine | 60 ml |
| Bay leaves, powdered | 2 g |
| Ground black pepper | 3 g |
| Hog casing (Ø 36–40 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Cut the meats into 3 to 4 cm cubes. Do not mince too finely: the traditional chouriço keeps visible pieces. Chill.
- Mincing: Mince coarsely through the 10 to 12 mm plate. Some prefer to cut by knife.
- Seasoning: Prepare the massa de pimentão by mixing the paprika, the crushed garlic, the bay and the wine. Add to the meats with the salt. Mix well by hand.
- Maceration: Refrigerate for 3 to 5 days, mixing daily. This long maceration is essential.
- Stuffing: Stuff into the casings, forming horseshoe-shaped sausages of 20 to 25 cm.
- Smoking: Cold-smoke for 10 to 15 days over oak or chestnut wood in the smokehouse or the traditional chimney.
- Drying: Continue drying for 2–4 weeks to the desired consistency.
- Cooking: The chouriço may be eaten as it is, grilled, or cooked in dishes (feijoada, cozido, açorda).
The name chouriço shares the same Latin etymology as the Spanish chorizo, both derived from the Latin salsicia through distinct phonetic evolutions in the two Iberian languages. The first documented mentions of the chouriço in the Portuguese archives date from the fifteenth century. The two products diverged over the centuries in aromatic profile and technique: the chouriço is generally more garlicky, macerated longer in the massa de pimentão and smoked for a markedly longer time.
The massa de pimentão is the most distinctive marker of Portuguese charcuterie against that of the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a paste of sweet red peppers, salt-fermented, in which the meat macerates for several days with daily turning. This partial fermentation deepens the aromatic profile and yields a result different from that of a simple mixture of dry pimentón with the meat. Traditional smoking takes place in the lareira, the central chimney of Portuguese rural houses, where the fire burns continuously in winter, and the hanging sausages slowly absorb the smoke. The woods used are oak (carvalho) and chestnut (castanheiro), the dominant species of the forests of northern and central Portugal.
Regional variants are documented:
- The chouriço de Portalegre, in the Alto Alentejo, is heavily garlicked and given a long smoking.
- The chouriço de vinho is macerated in red wine rather than white, which lends it a tannic note and a darker colour.
- The chouriço de Vinhais, in Trás-os-Montes, has held a European PGI since 2008 and is produced exclusively from pigs of the bísara breed (porco bísaro), a local breed raised in semi-liberty whose meat is more marbled than that of commercial breeds.
It is used in feijoada à portuguesa (a bean stew), cozido à portuguesa (a boiled dinner), açorda (a traditional soup), and many rice and pulse dishes. It is also eaten on its own, grilled over embers or flamed in an assador de barro, a small terracotta dish set on the table, in which the chouriço, scored in a spiral, cooks in its own fat with a little spirit poured over it.
The book
All 144 recipes and their histories, gathered in a single volume.