Sausages of Spain and Portugal

These two groups are treated together, because the sausages of the whole Iberian peninsula, and of the Balearics, can be regarded as constituting one family—and an important one, for representatives of it have become established in C. and S. America, parts of the USA where Spanish or Portuguese influences are felt, and the Philippines.

• Chorizo (Portuguese chouriço), the best known of all, is usually made of chopped or minced pork, with some fat, prepared with sweet and hot paprika or pulp from red peppers, giving it its characteristic red colour. Garlic and black pepper are among the other flavourings. Chorizo sometimes appears as a soft sausage to be cooked with beans etc. for soups, but much more commonly as a hard, cured sausage, of which slices are eaten cold or used as an ingredient; in Portugal, for example, a slice of chouriço is obligatory at the bottom of a bowl of Caldo verde, potato and cabbage soup.

• Morcilla is like black pudding, a kind of blood sausage. Janet Mendel (1996) says that it is ‘seasoned with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Some regional types may contain onion, anise, fennel, rice or pine nuts … Morcilla is usually stewed with pulses and vegetables.’

• Salchichón is a hard, cured sausage, called longaniza or fuet if long and thin. Salchicha, on the other hand, is usually a fresh pork sausage in links.

• Butifarra, butifarró, and butifarron are a family of names which cover a large range of sausages, including several of special interest. Butifarra negra is another blood sausage, while butifarra blanca is a white sausage made of minced pork and spices, cooked, a speciality of Catalan cuisine. Andrews (1988) draws attention to botifarra dolça, a sweet version which is a speciality of the Empordà region, cured with sugar and sometimes flavoured with cinnamon and lemon juice, to be eaten as dessert.

• Sobrasada, the most famous sausage of Majorca, is irregular in shape, soft, spicy, and a reddish-orange colour. It is a popular snack, spread on bread. Authentic sobrasada contains cuts of meat from the loin, fillet, and leg of pork, all finely chopped and mixed with salt and paprika (to be absolutely correct, pimentón mallorquín). Size varies according to the type of intestine used as casing. The sausage keeps for up to a year in a cool place.