Patatera
Extremadura, Spain
Extremadura's spreadable, potato-stretched chorizo.
Overview
Patatera is a soft orange-red sausage with a smooth potato-and-fat texture, paprika and garlic. it should remain spreadable and must not show fermentation defects or rancid fat.
Where it's from
Climate. The dehesa country of Extremadura, home of the Iberico pig.
How to recognise it
A soft orange-red sausage with a smooth potato-and-fat texture, paprika and garlic. It should remain spreadable and must not show fermentation defects or rancid fat. Grease smear, hollow pockets, case hardening, a wet centre, rancidity or uncontrolled dark mould is a production fault.
- Shape and size
- Soft, plump link
- Lean colour
- Bright pimenton-red
- Fat and marbling
- Smooth, spreadable
- Casing
- Hog casing, 36 mm
- Surface bloom
- Possible
Origins and history
Patatera belongs to northern Extremadura in western Spain, where it grew out of the thrift of the household pig slaughter. Cooks stretched a small amount of pork and a generous quantity of back fat with boiled, mashed potato, turning modest meat into an affordable and richly flavoured sausage. It is coloured and seasoned with La Vera pimentón, the smoke-dried paprika of the region, which gives both its deep red hue and a mild smoky warmth. A blood-enriched relation is sold as morcilla patatera, while the plain patatera carries no blood. Potato extended scarce pork after the matanza and created a soft, economical sausage with a distinctive orange-red colour. It is commonly spread on bread or cooked into local dishes. Towns in northern Extremadura continue to celebrate Patatera during Carnival and slaughter-season events, turning a thrifty potato-and-fat sausage into a marker of local identity.
Name. Patatera, from patata, the potato.
- Production today
- An Extremaduran speciality.
- Protection
- Unprotected as a generic, though regional labels exist.
- Tradition vs modern
- A traditional matanza economy product.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Compare with. Sobrasada de Mallorca
Serving and cultural significance
Spread it on bread at cool room temperature, grill it gently or pair it with honey, cheese and eggs. Its potato and fat make it soft and rich. Keep the home product refrigerated unless measured pH and water activity support another storage plan.
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
Patatera combines boiled potato with pork meat and a high proportion of pork fat, coloured with pimentón and flavoured with garlic. Fresh cooking versions and fermented, softly dried Patatera Extremeña versions both exist. The Atlas entry is defined as the fermented form.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- neck and a large share of back fat
- Salt (%)
- 2.6
- Curing salt
- Cure #2
- Other agents
- potato; pimenton
- Fermented
- Yes
- Target pH
- 4.9
- Starter or mould
- T-SPX
- Smoked
- No
- Target aW or weight loss
- soft and spreadable; spread fresh or lightly dried (about 10 to 20%)
- Temperature (°C)
- ferment then cool dry
- Humidity (%)
- ferment high, then 75 to 80
- Maturation
- a short cure, kept soft
- Basis
- per 1000 g meat blend, plus 200% potato
- Style
- Fermented, kept soft and spreadable
Ingredients
- boiled potato (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- pork shoulder20% · 200 g/kg
- back fat80% · 800 g/kg
- smoked sweet paprika (Pimenton de la Vera)1.75% · 18 g/kg
- garlic1.5% · 15 g/kg
Method
- Cook and mash the potato.
- Mix the fermented meat and fat with pimenton.
- Fold in the potato.
- Stuff and ferment.
- Keep soft, drying only lightly.
Notes
- This traditional recipe carries 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.
- Potato at 200% of the meat is the defining feature; it stretches a little meat a long way and keeps the paste soft.
- A poor man's chorizo of the dehesa, born of thrift.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, pH