Chorizo de calabaza
Also known as Chorizo de Calabaza
Extremadura, Spain
A pumpkin-stretched chorizo.
Overview
Chorizo de Calabaza is a soft orange-red sausage with visible pork and a sweet pumpkin, paprika and warm-spice aroma. it should not be wet, sour or unstable.
Where it's from
How to recognise it
A soft orange-red sausage with visible pork and a sweet pumpkin, paprika and warm-spice aroma. It should not be wet, sour or unstable. Casing or exterior: Hog casing, 36 mm. Grease smear, hollow pockets, case hardening, a wet centre, rancidity or uncontrolled dark mould is a production fault.
- Casing
- Hog casing, 36 mm
Origins and history
Chorizo de Calabaza is a rustic sausage from western Spain, closely tied to Extremadura, where cured pork was stretched with cooked pumpkin so the autumn slaughter would feed a household through winter. It grows from the thrift of the matanza tradition, folding a cheap seasonal vegetable into paprika-seasoned meat rather than wasting either. A near relative survives across the border in northern Portugal as the Chouriço de Abobora de Barroso-Montalegre, which carries PGI protection. The pumpkin lightens the paste and gives a shorter, gentler maturing than an all-meat chorizo. Pumpkin extended the pig slaughter in households where meat and fat were scarce. The vegetable contributes moisture and softness, which makes fermentation and drying control especially important. Pumpkin stretched the pork block during the autumn slaughter, softened the texture and carried pimentón and warm spice, making the sausage especially associated with thrift and seasonal abundance.
- Protection
- Unprotected.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Compare with. Patatera
Serving and cultural significance
Spread or grill the sausage gently and serve it with bread, cheese, eggs or honey. Pumpkin gives a soft, sweet texture that contrasts with pimentón and spice. Keep the Curesmith version refrigerated unless its complete hurdle system validates stable storage.
Recipe and cure
This is not a finished recipe. It is a window into how this meat is traditionally cured. Before you follow any process, please run it through one of our curing calculators, so the salt, cure and timings are right and safe for your own batch.
Make this — the measured Curesmith version →The cure below is the traditional reference. “Make this” opens the measured Curesmith home recipe, scaled to your batch.
Traditional or protected production
Chorizo de Calabaza combines drained cooked pumpkin with pork, fat, pimentón and warm spice. It is a regional resource-saving sausage and must not be confused with the separate Portuguese protected Chouriço de Abóbora.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- neck and back fat
- Salt (%)
- 2.5
- Fermented
- Yes
- Target pH
- 4.9
- Starter or mould
- T-SPX
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- short cure, kept soft
- Basis
- per 1000 g green meat
- Style
- Pumpkin chorizo
Ingredients
- pork neck (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- dextrose (or sugar)0.1% · 1 g/kg, or sugar 0.2% · 2 g/kg
- allspice0.05% · 0 g/kg
- pimenton, smoked1% · 10 g/kg
- nutmeg0.1% · 1 g/kg
- cinnamon0.05% · 0 g/kg
- cloves, ground0.03% · 0 g/kg
- ginger, ground0.05% · 0 g/kg
- white wine3% · 30 g/kg
- pumpkin (scraped and drained)100% · 1000 g/kg
Notes
- Pumpkin at 200% of the meat is the defining feature.
- This traditional recipe carries no nitrite. For safety we recommend adding Cure #2: in a low-oxygen, slow-dried product nitrite is the specific guard against Clostridium botulinum, while salt, acidity and drying control Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and Staphylococcus.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, pH