Chorizo de Salamanca
Candelario/Guijuelo, Castile-Leon, Spain
Rich and paprika-scented, often from iberico pork, a Salamancan chorizo.
Overview
Chorizo de Salamanca is rich and paprika-scented, often from iberico pork, a salamancan chorizo. A long broad sausage with vivid red lean, larger white fat pieces and a sweet-paprika, garlic and warm-spice aroma.
Where it's from
Climate. The Salamanca highlands, ham country.
Altitude. High plateau
The cut
How to recognise it
A long broad sausage with vivid red lean, larger white fat pieces and a sweet-paprika, garlic and warm-spice aroma. Shape and size: Looped or straight. Lean colour: Deep red. Fat and marbling: White marbling. Casing or exterior: Hog cular casing, 45 to 70 mm. Surface: Possible. The form is looped or straight. the lean is deep red. the fat or marbling is white marbling. and the exterior uses hog cular casing, 45 to 70 mm. Grease smear, hollow pockets, case hardening, a wet centre, rancidity or uncontrolled dark mould is a production fault.
- Shape and size
- Looped or straight
- Lean colour
- Deep red
- Fat and marbling
- White marbling
- Casing
- Hog cular casing, 45 to 70 mm
- Surface bloom
- Possible
Origins and history
Chorizo de Salamanca belongs to the great ham country of the Castilian plateau, around Guijuelo and the villages of the Sierra de Bejar such as Candelario. Its defining form is the chorizo cular, named for the tripa cular, the pig's large-intestine end it is stuffed into. That thick casing and the long stick it makes force a slow maturation of roughly two months in the cold, dry highland air, which is where the flavour is built. It was traditionally a product of the winter matanza, and the finest examples lean on acorn-fed Iberian pork from the same zone that gives Spain its most celebrated hams. Seasoned on pimenton and garlic and left unsmoked, it sits a step above the everyday chorizo of the market stall.
The style developed in the same highland curing zone as Guijuelo ham. Winter matanzas used Iberian or white-pig meat, pimentón and garlic, then hung the large cular sausages for months in cold, dry mountain air.
Name. Chorizo; Salamanca the province.
- Production today
- Producers across Salamanca, many using iberico pork.
- Protection
- Not EU-protected as a general name.
- Tradition vs modern
- Often from iberico pork.
- Seasonality
- Traditionally the winter matanza.
Compare with. Chorizo, Salchichón de Salamanca
Serving and cultural significance
At its best this is a table chorizo, not a cooking sausage. Slice the cular thin and let it come to room temperature so the fat softens and the paprika comes forward, and serve it as it is with bread and a robust red. The finest acorn-fed Iberian cular is eaten raw, like a fine salume in its own right; save the thinner, everyday links for the pan, for stews, or for cooking into rice and bean dishes.
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 Salamanca commonly appears as a broad chorizo cular, named for the pig bung or cular casing. The thick 40–70 mm format and long straight shape require a much slower dry than ordinary chorizo. Generic Salamanca chorizo is not an EU GI.
The reference process can be summarised as follows: Coarsely grind the meat and cube the fat, season, rest, stuff into pig bung and carry out a slow large-diameter fermentation and maturation.
- Meat
- Iberian pig
- Cut
- minced iberico pork and fat
- Salt (%)
- 2.5
- Curing salt
- Cure #2
- Fermented
- Yes
- Target pH
- 4.9
- Starter or mould
- Natural surface mould
- Smoked
- No
- Target aW or weight loss
- ~30% weight loss
- Temperature (°C)
- ferment 22 to 24, then dry 13 to 15
- Humidity (%)
- ferment ~90, then 75 to 80
- Maturation
- 4 to 8 weeks
- Basis
- per 1000 g of lean pork (main meat); back fat and spices are added as a percentage of the lean
- Style
- Traditional fermented and dried sausage
Ingredients
- lean pork (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- back fat33.35% · 333 g/kg
- smoked paprika (pimenton dulce)2.8% · 28 g/kg
- hot paprika (pimenton picante)0.5% · 5 g/kg
- oregano, ground0.2% · 2 g/kg
- garlic0.35% · 3.5 g/kg
Method
- Mince pork and fat and mix with all ingredients to green meat weight.
- Stuff into casing.
- Ferment to the target pH.
- Dry to the target weight loss.
Notes
- This traditional recipe uses 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.
- Meat and spice base follows the standard Spanish chorizo; no distinct regional formula is documented, so the regional character lives in the smoke, casing and cut.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, Water Activity