Sangueira de Barroso-Montalegre

Appearance & taste

The sausage is black, wrinkled and cylindrical, about 3 cm thick. A single cotton thread joins the two ends, each closed with a knot, so that it has the shape of a horseshoe. Its filling is soft and dry, and the pieces of meat can still be made out in it.

Because its composition means it cannot be cut into slices, it is only sold whole, always packed at the place of origin. The label shows “Sangueira de Barroso — Montalegre — protected geographical indication”, the Community logo, the logo of the products of Barroso-Montalegre and a numbered certification mark through which each sausage can be traced back to the farm.

Production

Meat, fat and blood come from pigs of the Bísaro breed or from crosses with at least 50 % Bísaro blood, kept on semi-extensive farms. At slaughter the blood is stirred with water so that it does not clot, seasoned with salt and garlic and left to rest. The fatty meat is cut into small pieces, seasoned with salt, garlic and red or white wine from the region and rests for at most three days in a cool, not very damp room. The wheat bread is cut into thin slices.

Meat, bread and blood are mixed with hot paprika (“Pimento”) and/or sweet paprika (“Pimentão”), chopped parsley, onion and untreated oil from Trás-os-Montes and filled into pig’s small intestine. The sausages are tied off and closed into a horseshoe. They are smoked for three to four days over a low fire in a smoking room or in the traditional smoking oven; the smoke comes from wood from the region, mainly oak.

Origin & history

The pigs come from the municipalities of Boticas, Chaves and Montalegre in the district of Vila Real, an area known as Barroso. The sausage is made only in the municipality of Montalegre.

Because of the climate, the location and, according to the specification, the difficult connections to the rest of the country, the people of Barroso lived on what they produced themselves, above all bread, potatoes and pork. So that the meat would last the whole year, preserving became an art passed down from generation to generation. In the cold, dry climate, the hearth fire burned constantly in every house, and its weak, gradually acting smoke offered good conditions for smoking. In this way, traditional slaughtering gave rise to many sausages of different shapes, colours and flavours.