Portugal’s Smoky Chouriço Sausage is Ready for its Close-up
October 25, 2003 posted by David Leite
My sausage is suffering from an identity crisis, and it irks me. Mention chorizo, and what springs to mind are pungent Mexican links filled with ground meat that’s redolent of garlic and chile powder. But mention chouriço (pronounced sho-ree-zoo), the musky smoked sausage of Portugal, and “Isn’t that just another kind of Spanish chorizo?” usually follows. Well, I’m tired of this culinary confusion, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I was weaned on chouriço (sometimes called linguiça), as every good Portuguese child should be. The sausage held sway at every meal. At breakfast it was served instead of bacon. At lunch it insinuated itself into soups and tortilhas (frittatas). And at dinner whole meals were orchestrated around it: favas guisadas com chouriço (fava bean and sausage stew), cozido à Portuguesa (Portuguese boiled dinner), and the inflammable chouriço à bombeiro — sausage that had been doused with brandy and set afire at the table with a great whoosh. Accompanying it were fat, orangish batatas fritas, potato wedges that had been fried in corn oil infused with the sausage’s flavor and color. All that was needed to begin was a quick prayer, then a nod from my father.
But after a lifetime of insensitive comments from others, I began having doubts: Was chouriço merely a chorizo knock-off — a Portuguese Payless to a Spanish Manolo Blanhik?
To settle the matter once and for all, I called Herminio Lopes, owner of Lopes Sausage Company in Newark, NJ. Besides making some of the best chouriço I have ever tasted, he plays both sides of the Iberian border by also selling Spanish chorizo.
According to Lopes, both sausages are made with pork shoulder, paprika, garlic, black pepper, and salt, but an astonishing 20 percent of Spanish chorizo’s weight is paprika. Chouriço, on the other hand, has considerably less paprika and much more garlic and black pepper. In addition, lots of Portuguese red wine is splashed in to round out the flavor. In short, it’s got a bigger bite that can hold its own in lots of dishes.
Feeling a superiority dance coming, I called back and asked a clerk which sausage is more popular.
“In terms of sales, chouriço,” she said.
Yes! Portugal rules, even if no one knew it but me. But my smug self-satisfaction was short-lived. Lopes got on the line and told me that one of his biggest chorizo customers was none other than the White House. (Was that swagger I heard in his voice?) Apparently, Bill Clinton had some of Lopes’s chorizo at a fundraiser in 1996, and from then on he ordered 50 to 60 pounds a month, used to impress world leaders. When George W. Bush took office, he kept the chorizo coming. All I have to say is, “That’s okay, Washington. My campaign to put a chouriço in every pot has just begun.”
Source
Lopes Sausage Co.
304 Walnut St., Newark, NJ 07105
(973) 344-3063
(They ship nationwide)
Recipe
Portuguese Sausage Frittata
Article © 2003 David Leite. Photograph © 2003 Maryellen Baker. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.
David Leite is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Leite's Culinaria. He has received three James Beard Awards for his writing as well as for Leite's Culinaria. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Pastry Art & Design, Food Arts, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, epicurious.com, and Ridgefield Magazine, where he was the food editor for three years.
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Wait to go David. You tell them who the boss is. Chorizo is very popular down in NC here because we do have so many Mexicans, but I have turn a few of our neighbors onto Chourico and Linquica and they will never go back. They love the patties especially at breakfast. Portuguese Food RULES!!!!!
Good luck on the sale of your new book. It’s been a long time coming, I can’t wait to get my copy. Need to order more meats from up north to enjoy the flavors and favorites.
Hrm, where I grew up (Southeastern New England), we pronounced it “sher-eece.” Possibly an Azorean pronunciation?
I grew up in Fall River, and we called it “sher-eece,” too. That’s the Americanization of the Azorean pronunciation: “shah-rdeece.” The proper (meaning the standard dictionary) pronunciation is “show-rdee-soo.”
Dear David, my husband and I were in Portugal last fall and loved it, the people and the food. I am confused though by your reference to the fact that chouriço is often referred to as linguiça. I live in North Attleboro, MA, and we can buy chouriço and linguiça as two seperate items. Isn’t that correct? We do love them both. Thanks.
Kathleen, some stores, especially in non-Portuguese communities, call all Portuguese sausage chouriço while others call them linguiça. And what makes it even more confusing, as I mention in my book, is that there’s no nationally accepted distinction between the two sausages—here or in Portugal. In the U.S., different manufacturers have their own definition of what each sausage is. To some, linguiça is lean while chouriço is fatty, or vice versa. To others, chouriço is spicy while linguiça is mild, again, or vice versa. Some even have several types of chouriço: lean, fatty, very fatty as well as mild and spicy! So my point, both in the article and in the book, is that any kind of distinction, as you have in the stores in North Attleboro, and I had in Fall River, are really community-based differences. The one consistency: linguiça is smaller in diameter. I hope this helps!
David, I grew up in Fall River, too! I like Gaspar’s sher-eece! Can’t wait to get the new book!
David, my husband grew up in Fall River, and we go back to see family often. I always overdose on Portuguese food and chow mein when there.
When we lived in Florida we were able to find a lot of Portuguese food in the stores, or we would have friends going back to Mass. bring us back some things. Now that we live in Texas we are having to order everything.
I told my husband I want your book for my birthday.
Susan, I hope you like the book. There are recipes in there for some of the staples you now order, but there’s no substitute for smoked chouriço—and one of the finest suppliers, I think, is Lopes Sausage Co. in Newark, Nj.