Manteca colorá

Also known as Manteca Colorá

Seville, Andalusia, Spain

Potted pork in pimenton lard.

Overview

Manteca Colorá is lard coloured and flavoured with pimentón, often carrying shreds or pieces of cooked pork. It is spread on bread for breakfast or a tapa. Zurrapa is a close relation with more obvious fibres of meat.

Where it's from

Seville, Andalusia, Spain

The cut

Pork cut chart with the Shoulder highlighted — Pork · ShoulderLean pork with lard

How to recognise it

The spread is orange-red to brick red, with clean paprika and roasted-pork aromas. Meat may be finely shredded or present in small pieces. The fat should be smooth and fresh, never waxy, sour or rancid.

Origins and history

Andalusian households rendered pork fat after the matanza and used it both for cooking and preservation. Pimentón gave the lard its brick-red colour, while garlic, oregano and spice turned it into a ready seasoning. Packing cooked pork beneath the fat made a rich breakfast food at a time when labour began early and calories were valuable. The tradition survives in cafés and ventas, where it may replace butter on toasted country bread.

Protection: Unprotected.
Seasonality: The winter matanza.

Serving and cultural significance

Spread it on hot toast so the lard softens and the paprika opens. It is often eaten at breakfast, as a tapa, or with coffee, beer or wine. A little goes a long way because the product is both meat and cooking fat.

Recipe and cure

Origin RecipeDraft, to verify

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.

Meat: pork
Cut: lean pork with lard
Salt (%): 5.5
Fermented: No
Smoked: No
Maturation: cook, pot in lard
Basis: per 1000 g green meat
Style: Andalusian potted pork in coloured lard

Ingredients

tocino (fat)20% · 200 g/kg
Moruno spice1.5% · 15 g/kg
kosher salt5.5% · 55 g/kg
lard10% · 100 g/kg
sherry10% · 100 g/kg

Notes

This is a cooked product. Cook thoroughly to a safe internal temperature and cool promptly; cooking does not kill botulinum spores, so keep the warm-holding window short and refrigerate.

In the Codex

What this product teaches, and where to read more.

Temple. Pillar, Hygiene Control