Overview
Chorizo Fresco is a soft bright-red fresh sausage with coarse pork, visible fat, garlic and pimentón. it must not have a dry casing or sour ferment.
Where it's from
The cut
How to recognise it
A soft bright-red fresh sausage with coarse pork, visible fat, garlic and pimentón. It must not have a dry casing or sour ferment. Casing or exterior: Hog casing, 36 mm. A raw or grey centre, split filling, greasy purge, sourness or broken refrigeration is unacceptable.
- Casing
- Hog casing, 36 mm
Origins and history
Chorizo is the broad family of Spanish pork sausages coloured and flavoured with pimenton, the paprika that reached Spain after contact with the Americas. Most Spanish chorizo is dried and matured, but a fresh, uncured version has long been made in the household kitchen and is now prepared more widely. It is close in spirit to the fresh chorizos of South America, where the sausage travelled with Spanish settlers and became a fixture of the grill. Because it is neither fermented nor dried, it carries no cure salt and is simply seasoned pork meant for prompt cooking. Fresh chorizo was eaten soon after the matanza or used in stews before the longer-cured sausages were ready. Its juicy texture and bright paprika profile remain distinct from dry chorizo. The fresh form allows the matanza seasoning to be eaten immediately, before the remaining links have fermented or dried, and is therefore cooked rather than judged as a mature salami.
- Protection
- Unprotected.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Compare with. Chorizo de Cantimpalos
Serving and cultural significance
Grill, fry, roast or simmer the sausage until the centre reaches at least 72°C. Serve in bread, with eggs, potatoes, beans or cider. The casing may be pricked only if the recipe requires it, because escaping fat carries much of the pimentón flavour.
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 Fresco is an uncured or lightly seasoned fresh pork sausage with pimentón, garlic, oregano and wine. It is refrigerated and cooked before eating, not fermented and dried.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- collar, belly and jowl blend
- Salt (%)
- 1.8
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- fresh, cook soon
- Basis
- per 1000 g green meat
- Style
- Fresh chorizo
Ingredients
- pork shoulder (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- pepper0.1% · 1 g/kg
- Spanish paprika, sweet1% · 10 g/kg
- Spanish paprika, hot0.4% · 4 g/kg
- oregano0.2% · 2 g/kg
- garlic, smashed0.3% · 3 g/kg
- white wine, dry6% · 60 g/kg
Notes
- A fresh sausage: keep cold and cook through soon after making.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Pillar, Hygiene Control