Portuguese chouriço is flaming good!

You may already know the smoked sausage made by our neighbours across the border, chorizo. The Portuguese version is chouriço, and we say it sho-ree-soo.

Portuguese chouriço: the (not so) secret ingredient

Chouriço is a traditional delicacy and about as widely loved as food gets in Portugal. It works as a starter or a snack, and it goes with wine or beer equally well.

It is also the ingredient that makes several classic dishes what they are: the hearty broad bean dish favas com chouriço, the much-loved collard green soup caldo verde, and the street food staple pão com chouriço.

Pão com chouriço is a national craving in its own right. It is baked and sold from dedicated food trucks and stalls, and the smell coming out of the oven will find even the most distracted nose.

Not all chouriço is the same

The recipe shifts a little from one region to the next, but the base is usually the same: a rich mixture of pork seasoned with garlic, pepper, paprika and salt.

Some recipes also use blood, and the darker colour gives them away. The mixture is combined and then marinated for a few days in wine infused with cloves and bay leaves, stuffed and shaped into U-shaped sausages about 30 to 40 cm long, and smoked for several days. Then it faces the test of fire.

The Portuguese chouriço test of fire

The sausage goes into a clay grill dish, gets sprayed with aguardente firewater, and is set alight to cook in the flames. Watching it burn is half the point. After a few minutes the fire dies down, leaving a dark, crisp skin around meat that is tender and full of juice. Bravo.