Morcilla achorizada
Also known as Morcilla de Jaen, Morcilla Achorizada
Jaen, Andalusia, Spain
A chorizo-spiced blood sausage from Jaen, bound with rice and potato.
Overview
Morcilla Achorizada is a dark red-brown sausage with visible fat and offal, strong pimentón and garlic and a dense cooked texture. it should never have a raw bloody centre.
Where it's from
Climate. The olive-oil country of Jaen in eastern Andalusia.
How to recognise it
A dark red-brown sausage with visible fat and offal, strong pimentón and garlic and a dense cooked texture. It should never have a raw bloody centre. A raw or grey centre, split filling, greasy purge, sourness or broken refrigeration is unacceptable.
- Shape and size
- Plump cooked link
- Lean colour
- Dark, pimenton-red
- Fat and marbling
- Flecked with fat and rice
- Casing
- Pork or sheep casing, 30 to 32 mm
- Surface bloom
- None
Origins and history
Morcilla achorizada belongs to the wide family of Spanish blood sausages, and is associated with Andalusia in the south. Its name nods to chorizo, because both sausages lean heavily on pimenton for their colour and warmth, and the two can look much alike once dried. Where many morcillas are built around onion or rice, this style is a richer preparation of offal, back fat and blood, seasoned in the chorizo manner with sweet and hot pimenton, oregano and garlic. It is dried rather than smoked, which sets it apart from the fresh, boil-and-eat blood puddings of other regions. The sausage belongs to the whole-animal economy of the matanza. Offal, skin, blood and fatty pieces were combined into a paprika-rich sausage whose chorizo-like colour and shape explain its name. The chorizo comparison refers to paprika, garlic and outward appearance rather than to fermentation; the blood, cooked offal, skin and fat matrix remains a cooked morcilla.
Name. Achorizada, made chorizo-like; Jaen names the province.
- Production today
- An Andalusian regional speciality.
- Protection
- Unprotected.
- Tradition vs modern
- A traditional matanza product.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Compare with. Morcilla de Burgos
Serving and cultural significance
Serve cooked slices warm with bread, eggs, peppers or potatoes. Paprika gives a chorizo-like colour, but the rich blood and offal filling benefits from acidic pickles or fruit. Keep the sausage refrigerated before and after service.
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
Morcilla Achorizada combines cooked offal and skin with pork fat, trimmings and blood, seasoned heavily with pimentón, garlic and oregano. It may be dried after stuffing, but the Atlas treats it as a product that must be cooked before eating.
Smoked paprika over a potato-and-onion farce, poached: chorizo colours on a soft morcilla.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- blend of neck, jowl and back fat, with blood
- Salt (%)
- 3
- Curing salt
- None. This is a cooked blood sausage, not a cured product.
- Other agents
- pig's blood; rice; potato; sofrito; pimenton
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Target aW or weight loss
- not applicable (cooked and refrigerated)
- Temperature (°C)
- poach at ~85 (water temperature, kept below the boil)
- Maturation
- hang a few hours at 12 to 15 to dry the surface, then refrigerate
- Basis
- per 1000 g minced pork (primary)
- Style
- Cooked (poached) blood sausage
Ingredients
- Pork shoulder, minced (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- Hard back fat, diced50% · 500 g/kg
- Potato, boiled and mashed50% · 500 g/kg
- Pig's blood, fresh or reconstituted40% · 400 g/kg
- Onion, finely minced and sauteed until soft30% · 300 g/kg
- Smoked paprika (Pimenton de la Vera)4% · 40 g/kg
- Salt3% · 30 g/kg
- Garlic, minced fresh0.8% · 8 g/kg
- Oregano0.6% · 6 g/kg
- Black pepper0.6% · 6 g/kg
- Coriander, ground0.4% · 4 g/kg
- Cayenne or red pepper flakes (to taste)0.1% · 1 g/kg
Method
- Combine the minced pork, fat, mashed potato and sauteed onion.
- Add the blood and all seasonings and mix to a sticky, even farce.
- Stuff into natural casings and tie into links.
- Poach gently below the boil, then hang briefly to dry the surface.
Notes
- Final recipe, signed off by The Curesmith. It uses no curing salt: safety comes from the gentle cook, prompt cooling and refrigeration.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Pillar, Hygiene Control