Salchichón

(This article is based on an article in the Spanish language Wikipedia.)

The salchichón is a type of sausage made with cured meat: mostly lean pork and some bacon, seasoned with salt and some spices such as pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and coriander. This whole mass, chopped, is left to marinate for about 24 hours and then stuffed into intestines of beef or pork, and then hung to cure, which can be by smoking or simply air-drying for several days. There are also sausage mixtures containing meats such as pork and beef, or pork and wild boar, venison, etc.

Uses and traditions[]

In Spanish cuisine, this type is not only used in the preparation of sausage dishes, but is widely used as an ingredient of snacks. It is often requested by children for lunch in a sandwich. It also serves chopped, as a tapa, topped with a small piece of bread.

Varieties[]

Salchichón de jabalí (Wild boar sausage)[]

In Spanish cuisine, this is often referred to as a stuffed sausage made with different meats such as deer, boar, and bear, seasoned with black pepper. For example, in some villages in Zamora, varieties are developed that combine boar sausage with pork. In some villages in northern Spain, this is often a product of the slaughter of pigs.

"Chocolate salchichón"[]

In some Latin American countries, some more or less traditional varieties are made, such as in Venezuela there is known the "sausage with pistachio." In Argentina and Uruguay there is a dessert called "Chocolate Salami" ("Salchichón de Chocolate" or "Morcillón chocolate") which does not contain any sausage in the ingredients, but is so named for the shape.

Iberian salchichón[]

Iberian salchichón is a variety developed in the areas of Extremadura or Salamanca made with the lean meat of the Iberian pig. The preparation is very similar to that of all sausages, with the meat mixed with Iberian pork fat, adding black peppercorns, salt oregano, and the resulting sausages air-dried.

Salchichón de Vic[]

This sausage is made in the region of the Plana de Vic, in which there are 28 villages included in the area defined for the geographical origin of this sausage. The region is located in a passage between the Pyrenees and coastal depression, at an altitude ranging between 400 and 600 m (1300—2000 ft). It is madewith meat from pigs, specifically the most lean: the hams of these animals. The meat, after being chopped, is mixed with diced bacon in order to provide a mixture with a particularly delicate texture and flavor. The mixed meat is stuffed into natural casings and then dried for 45 days in the constant breezes from the Sierra de Montseny. It is often presented as "candles" 7—8 cm (2.8—3.1 in) in diameter and with lengths ranging between 50—60 cm (20—24 in). This sausage then has the original labels affixed which are supplied by the Council of the IGP Designation “Salchichón de Vic” or “Llonganissa de Vic”.

Salchichón de Aragon[]

This sausage, produced in Aragon, is also called "hígado de Calamocha" (Calamocha liver), which is named for its lean meat content of pork liver, marjoram, the flower of mace (shell of nutmeg, whose perfume resembles a cross between cinnamon and pepper), black pepper, and white pepper.

In Aragon, this is a traditional sausage, but its production is dying out in favor of other, industrially produced, sausages, which are perhaps more common.

Salchichón cular[]

This is a variety of sausage containing pork with spices made in northern Spain (Basque Country) whose name derives from its being stuffed into casings of beef or pork tripe (cular) of about 40 cm (16 in) in length.

Variants[]

It is becoming more and more common to see sausages with chicken and turkey instead of pork. Experimental variations include home-made ostrich meat seasoned with pepper.

Some variants include a change in the composition of companions such as one in Venezuela which is known the "sausage with pistachio." In Chile one is known as "Beer Sausage."

In Russia, smoked sausage is common.