Morcilla asturiana
Also known as Morcilla Asturiana
Asturias, Spain
Asturian smoked blood sausage.
Overview
Morcilla Asturiana is a dark onion-rich blood sausage dried and smoked over hardwood, traditionally oak. It is an essential part of compango for fabada and pote, where it is cooked slowly and perfumes the whole dish.
Where it's from
The cut
How to recognise it
The casing is wrinkled and dark brown to almost black, with a pronounced clean smoke. Inside, onion and fat sit in a dark blood matrix. The sausage is dense enough to survive a long stew but should soften as it cooks. Tar, rancidity or a sour wet core are faults.
- Casing
- Hog casing, 36 mm
Origins and history
Asturias' damp Atlantic climate made smoke a practical partner to drying. After the winter slaughter, blood, onion, fatty pork and offal were made into links and hung above the hearth until the casing darkened and wrinkled. The smoke gave the sausage enough resilience to wait for the long simmer of bean and cabbage dishes. The current collective mark formalises regional production and natural smoking without turning the product into an EU geographical indication.
- Protection
- Unprotected.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Serving and cultural significance
Its classic place is in fabada, pote asturiano and other slow-cooked dishes. Add it whole and handle it gently; the aim is to release smoke, spice and fat without allowing the casing to burst and cloud the stew.
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.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- blood, fat and onion, pimenton
- Salt (%)
- 1.2
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- Yes
- Maturation
- cook, smoke, set
- Basis
- per 1 L pig's blood (book basis)
- Style
- Asturian smoked blood sausage
Ingredients
- onions (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- back fat or belly62.5% · 625 g/kg
- beef25% · 250 g/kg
- offal meat50% · 500 g/kg
- pig blood12.5% · 125 g/kg
- pimenton, sweet1% · 10 g/kg
- pimenton, hot0.6% · 6 g/kg
- cloves, ground0.03% · 0 g/kg
- garlic, minced0.7% · 7 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