Chouriça de sangue de Melgaço

Appearance & taste

The sausage is bent into a horseshoe, has a round cross-section of 2 to 4 cm and is 20 to 35 cm long. On the outside it is almost smooth, black and slightly moist. When cut it shows a well-bound, paste-like mass in which meat and fat are irregularly distributed; the shades of colour vary with the proportion and type of the ingredients.

It smells intensely of smoke and onion and is semi-soft, quite juicy and very tender. The taste is sweetish, moderately sour and slightly spicy, with a strong onion note and a slightly smoky aftertaste. The label bears the words “Chouriça de Sangue de Melgaço — Indicação Geográfica Protegida” and the sausage’s logo.

Production

The meat, fat and blood come from purebred Bísaro pigs or their crosses, which are slaughtered at a live weight of at least 110 kg and at the earliest at 32 weeks. Red Vinho Verde or a similar wine and salt are added to the blood so that it does not clot; it later binds the meat and fat and gives the sausage its semi-soft consistency and dark colour.

The bloody meat trimmings and the fat are cut into pieces of 2 to 3 cm and seasoned with wine, salt, garlic, onions, bay leaf and pepper; onions make up the largest share. The mixture rests for at most three days at no more than 11 °C and is stirred twice a day. Caraway, rye flour and sweet or hot paprika are also used for seasoning. It is filled into cleaned, scalded pig’s small intestine; the firm filling allows the sausage to be bent into a horseshoe.

The sausage then hangs for about 10 to 15 days in the smoke of a smouldering fire of dry, non-resinous wood of oak, broom and birch as well as heather and butterfly broom, which grow abundantly in the area. According to the specification, how long it stays in the smoke depends on the producers’ knowledge of the dryness of the wood and the amount of smoke. All steps from preparing the blood to smoking and ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area covers the municipality of Melgaço with all its parishes, including Castro Laboreiro, Lamas de Mouro, Paderne and Vila. It lies in the north-west of Portugal like an amphitheatre, bounded to the south by the mountains of the Minho valley and to the north by the Serra da Galiza. The climate is continental, with long, cold winters and hot, dry summers. Oak, birch and broom are considered typical plants of this microclimate, and butterfly broom and heather are native there.

Because of subsistence farming, the processing of pigs has a very long tradition in Melgaço. According to the specification, Melgaço was long an enclave that was hard to reach. As a result, customs such as slaughtering at the start of winter survived, and the inhabitants developed natural methods to use even perishable parts and the blood and to preserve them by cold ripening, smoking and curing.