Chorizo

• 1. One Name, Many Sausages

  ›

  Chorizo is a pork sausage that began on the Iberian Peninsula, and it has since taken root in several countries on different continents. In Brazil, the related word chouriço points somewhere unexpected. It names the food that most of Latin America calls morcilla, a blood sausage. That small mismatch captures the whole problem with chorizo. Its varieties have drifted so far apart that people sometimes argue over which product a name truly belongs to. How can a cured sausage you slice and eat as it is share a name with a raw one that must be fried and mashed? What gives some chorizos their deep red color, and why do the chilies change from country to country? The answers run from Spanish tapas plates to the sun-aged links of Goa.

  23725

• 2. Pimentón and Smoke

  ›

  In Spain and Portugal, the deep red of a traditional sausage comes from dried, smoked red peppers, called pimentón in Spanish and colorau in Portuguese. The same peppers give it a smoky edge. Made this way, the sausage is fermented, cured and smoked, so it can be sliced and eaten without cooking. Cooks also add it to other dishes to flavor them. Outside Europe, chorizo may be neither fermented nor cured, and then it has to be cooked before anyone eats it.

  Spanish chorizo is usually made from coarsely chopped pork and pork fat, seasoned with garlic, salt and pimentón, a smoked paprika. The kind of pimentón decides the character. Picante pimentón makes a spicy sausage, while dulce makes a sweet one. Hundreds of regional varieties exist, some smoked and some not, and some include herbs or other ingredients.

  Chorizo de Pamplona shows how far the differences can go. It is a thicker sausage, and its meat is ground more finely than usual. Chorizos also come short or long, and hard or soft. Leaner ones suit eating at room temperature as an appetizer or tapas. Fattier versions mostly go into the cooking pot.

  A common rule of thumb says that long, thin chorizos are sweet and short ones are spicy. Exceptions are easy to find.

  127821

• 3. The Spanish Table

  ›

  Lomo embuchado and salchichón are two other Spanish pork specialties, cured and air-dried in much the same way. Lomo is a lean cured meat made by marinating a pork tenderloin and letting it dry in the air. It is served in slices rather than cooked. Salchichón is a cured sausage that leaves out the pimentón and takes its flavor from black peppercorns.

  Fabada and cocido montañés are dishes in which chorizo keeps company with beans. Depending on the variety, chorizo can also be sliced into a sandwich, grilled, fried or baked alongside other foods. As a tapa, it may arrive in a red wine sauce. Iberian chorizo is also simmered in liquids, including apple cider or a strong spirit such as aguardiente. Some cooks use it to replace part of the ground beef or pork in a recipe.

  The phrase con todos los sacramentos, literally with all the sacraments, marks the grandest version of the bean dishes. It means with all the trimmings. Other preserved meats join the chorizo, including tocino, which is cured bacon, and morcilla, which is blood sausage.

  Across the border, Portugal treats its own version of the sausage as something distinct.

  7861019

• 4. Portuguese Chouriço

  ›

  In Portugal, the sausage is called chouriço, or chouriça when the version is larger or thicker, and it is regarded as distinct from the Spanish kind. The base is pork, fat, paprika, garlic and salt. Some regions add wine and hot peppers. The mixture goes into natural casings from pigs or lambs, then dries slowly over smoke. Varieties differ in color, shape, spices and taste, and some use white pepper, piri-piri, cumin or cinnamon.

  Cozido à portuguesa and feijoada, from Portuguese and Brazilian cooking, both make use of chouriço.

  Chouriço assado turns the sausage into table theater. The cook slices it part-way through and cooks it over an alcohol flame at the table. The sausage sits in a purpose-made glazed earthenware burner. It is sometimes called chouriço à bombeiro, though most people just say chouriço assado.

  Some Portuguese chouriço is made with blood, like blood sausage or black pudding. It is called chouriço de sangue or morcela. Other types include chouriço de vinho, chouriço de onion-flavored cebola, chouriço fumado, chouriço de ossos, chourição and chouriça de vinha d'alho.

  In 2023, the EU geographical indications register recognized eight Portuguese varieties. They included chouriço de ossos de Vinhais, azedo de Vinhais and Mouro de Portalegre. The others were abóbora de Barroso-Montalegre, Portalegre, carne de Estremoz, Estremoz e Borba, and do Baixo Alentejo. Spain had only two on the register, chorizo Riojano and chorizo de Cantimpalos. Chorizo Riojano, from the La Rioja region, carries PGI protection within the EU.

  111213145

• 5. Portuguese Footprints Abroad

  ›

  In Johannesburg, South Africa, a suburb called La Rochelle, nicknamed Little Portugal, drew many Portuguese immigrants in the 1960s. They came from Portugal and from Mozambique. Most later returned to Portugal or moved on to wealthier suburbs. Restaurants in the area still put chouriço on the menu, as does the well-supported annual fundraiser festival called Lusitoland.

  In the heavily Portuguese counties of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, chouriço turns up with little neck clams and white beans. Local delis and convenience stores sell chouriço sandwiches on grinder rolls, with sautéed green peppers and onions.

  Rhode Island also has stuffed quahogs, known as stuffies, a state specialty that usually includes chouriço. Far from Europe, the sausage's most distinctive cousin took shape in Mexico.

  1516171811

• 6. Mexican Chorizo

  ›

  Mexican chorizo is built on chorizo fresco, the uncooked fresh Spanish sausage. Its makers use fatty pork but also beef, venison, chicken and turkey, and kosher and vegan versions exist. The meat is usually ground rather than chopped, and the seasonings differ from Spain's.

  Imported Spanish paprika was historically expensive in Mexico. Makers turned instead to native cultivars of the same chili species used in Spain, which made the Mexican sausage spicier. Vinegar also replaces the white wine normally used in Spain. This fresh, spicy sausage is the main type in Mexico and much of the Americas, including most of the United States, but it is not often found in Europe.

  The area around Toluca specializes in green chorizo, made with some mix of tomatillo, cilantro, chili peppers and garlic. Most Mexican chorizo is a deep reddish color, and it comes fresh or dried, with fresh far more common. Some of the cheapest commercial versions stuff offal into an inedible plastic casing to mimic sausage links. Cooks usually cut the casing open and fry the filling, mashing it with a fork until it resembles finely minced ground beef. Some chorizo is made with no casing at all, with pork and beef cured overnight in vinegar and chili powder.

  Restaurants and food stands make tacos, burritos and tortas with cooked chorizo, and it is a popular pizza topping. Chorizo con huevos mixes fried chorizo with scrambled eggs and fills breakfast burritos, tacos and taquitos. Fried chorizo is also stirred into pinto or black refried beans, which serve as a torta spread or a side dish. Queso fundido, also called choriqueso, pairs small pieces of chorizo with melted cheese and corn tortillas or chips. In heavily Mexican parts of the United States, breakfast tacos are often filled with chorizo con papas, which is diced potato sautéed until soft with chorizo mixed in.

  212217204

• 7. Across the Americas

  ›

  In Puerto Rico, Panama and the Dominican Republic, chorizo and longaniza count as two different meats. Puerto Rican chorizo is smoked and well seasoned, nearly identical to the smoked versions in Spain. Puerto Rican and Dominican longanizas look and taste very different. The seasoned meat goes into a pork casing and is shaped by hand into a very long link, then hung to air-dry. It can be fried in oil or cooked with rice or beans. Salvadorean chorizo is short and fresh, and it is tied in twins.

  In the United States, the word generally means a sausage that is never dried, with a fattier filling and plenty of heat. It is most popular where Cuban, Dominican or Puerto Rican communities are large, or near the Mexican border. That includes the Southwest near Chihuahua, Sonora and Nuevo León. It also appears in Austin, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where historical evidence places it well before the era of the Wild West. It is most often eaten at breakfast, alone or mixed with a local version of migas.

  In Louisiana, Creole and Cajun cooking both feature a variant called chaurice, frequently used in the Creole dish of red beans and rice. Smoking it is an accepted local practice.

  In Ecuador, many sausages were adopted directly from European or North American cuisine, and all are loosely called salami. The most common are Spanish chorizo, Italian pepperoni and wieners, with wieners the most popular. Local chorizo combines chopped pork, pork fat, salt, whole pepper grains, cinnamon, achiote and other spices, which produce its deep red color. A traditional plate pairs fried slices with fried egg, mashed potatoes, avocado and salad.

  In Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, chorizo is the name for any coarse meat sausage. The Spanish style is labeled chorizo español. Argentine chorizos are normally pork and not hot, though some include beef. Fresh chorizo served in a bread roll is called choripán in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. In Colombia, chorizo usually comes with an arepa. Brazilians call their meat sausages of this kind linguiça.

  In Bolivia, pork chorizos are fried and served with a salad of tomato, lettuce, onion, boiled carrots and quirquiña. Mote comes alongside, plus a slice of bread soaked in chorizo fat. Chorizo sandwiches are also eaten there, without the mote.

  2324252627

• 8. Chorizo in Asia

  ›

  East Timor makes chouriço too. The Portuguese introduced it when they colonized the territory.

  Goa, in India, was ruled by the Portuguese for 450 years and has a large percentage of Goan Catholics. Its chouriço is made from pork marinated in vinegar, red chilies and spices. Those spices include garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric, cloves, pepper and cinnamon. The pork is stuffed into casings and may be left raw, smoked, or cured through salting and air-drying. Goans enjoy it with crusty local bread in the Portuguese style, with pearl onions, or with both. Cut into chunks, it also serves as the meat in rice pilaf.

  Goa has three kinds of chouriço: dry, wet and skin. Dry chouriço is aged in the sun for three months or more. Wet chouriço is aged for about a month or less. Skin chouriço is also aged but is rare and hard to find, made mostly of minced pork skin with some of its subcutaneous fat. All three come in hot, medium and mild versions. Links range from 1-6 inches, and the wet varieties tend to be longer than the dry ones. Goan frankfurters look much like their American equivalents but taste mostly of peppercorn.

  In the Philippines, longaniza, also spelled longganisa, is flavored with indigenous spices. It may be made from chicken, beef or even tuna. The term generally means fresh sausage, but it is also applied to cured ones. Many are dyed red with achuete seeds, and dozens of regional variants exist. In the Visayan language, the sausage still goes by chorizo, choriso or soriso.

  28291113