Chouriça de carne de Melgaço

Appearance & taste

The sausage is bent into a horseshoe, has a round cross-section of 2 to 3 cm and is 30 to 35 cm long. On the outside it is almost smooth, light brown and slightly moist. When cut it looks well bound and semi-firm, with an irregular, distinct marbling of meat and fat.

It smells strongly of smoke and is very juicy and tender. The taste is intense, moderately acidic, spicy and salty, with a strongly smoky aftertaste. The label bears the words “Chouriça de Carne de Melgaço — Indicação Geográfica Protegida” and the sausage’s logo.

Production

Shoulder meat, bacon, meat trimmings and fat come from purebred Bísaro pigs or their crosses, slaughtered at a live weight of at least 110 kg and at no less than 32 weeks old. Meat and fat are cut into small pieces of 2 to 3 cm and mixed so that the marbling forms and the filled sausage can be bent. It is seasoned with garlic, onions, sweet or hot paprika, salt, bay leaf, white Vinho Verde or a similar wine and water. The mixture rests for about a week at no more than 11 °C and is stirred twice a day.

It is stuffed into cleaned, scalded pork small intestine, with the meat and fat compacted. The sausage then hangs for about 15 days in the smoke of a smouldering fire of dry, non-resinous wood of oak, broom, birch, heather and winged broom, which gives little flame and a lot of smoke. It then ripens in a cool, airy place, locally called “Sequeiro” (drying loft). All steps from cutting to smoking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area comprises the municipality of Melgaço with all its parishes, including Castro Laboreiro, Lamas de Mouro, Paderne and Vila. Surrounded by the Serra da Galiza and the mountains of the Minho valley with heights of over 1,300 m, the municipality has very cold winters in which the mean minimum temperature does not rise above 11 °C. The cold makes it possible to process fresh meat and let it ripen slowly and naturally. Oaks, birches and broom grow in abundance, and winged broom and heather are native to the area.

According to the specification, Melgaço was long remote and hard to reach. As a result, the customs of keeping pigs and slaughtering them at the start of winter were preserved, and the inhabitants concentrated on natural ways of preserving meat, such as cold ripening by curing and smoking. According to the specification, the traditional use of white Vinho Verde in the curing mixture is typical of this sausage.