Dominican Longaniza

Dominican longaniza is the long, thin, garlicky pork sausage of the Dominican Republic, traditionally hung in the sun for a couple of days to dry and then cut into pieces and fried until it is crisp outside and juicy inside — longaniza frita, a fixture of the Dominican breakfast with mangú (mashed green plantain), fried cheese and eggs, and of the street-food fryers. It also goes into sancocho and rice dishes. What separates it from its Puerto Rican neighbour is acid, not colour. The Dominican sausage is seasoned with Dominican oregano, a lot of garlic, black pepper and the juice of bitter (Seville) orange, which gives it a sharp citrus edge; it is fatty, often a third fat or more; and a Dominican writer’s account assigns achiote to the Puerto Rican version, not this one. The short drying is what gives it its firm, concentrated bite. This version does that drying in the refrigerator with a measured cure instead of in the sun. I have not made this one yet; the formula is built from a Dominican author’s recipe and Marianski’s Dominican longaniza, and it is untested.

Ingredients

MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight

• 1,816 g / 4 lb boneless pork shoulder (80%)
• 454 g / 1 lb pork back fat or fatty belly (20%)

CURE (% of meat weight)

• 45 g / 1.6 oz fine salt (2%)
• 5.7 g Cure #1 (pink salt, 6.25% sodium nitrite) (0.25%) — 2.5 g/kg × 2.27 kg = 5.7 g; 2.5 g × 6.25% = 156 mg nitrite per kg = 156 ppm, the USDA ceiling for comminuted products
• 6.8 g sugar (0.3%)

SEASONING (% of meat weight)

• 27 g garlic, crushed to a paste (12–14 cloves) (1.2%)
• 14 g dried Dominican oregano (or Mexican oregano), rubbed (0.6%)
• 6.8 g black pepper, fresh ground (0.3%)
• 91 g / 3.2 oz bitter (sour) orange juice, about 90 ml / 3 fl oz (4%)
• 14 g sweet paprika, optional, for colour (0.6%)
• 28–32 mm natural hog casing, about 15 ft / 4.5 m, as continuous coils

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper

1. In the collection: Black Pepper and garlic; the sour orange is the signature. For the Puerto Rican cousin coloured with Annatto, see Puerto Rican Longaniza.
2. Grind: chill the shoulder and fat to 30–32 °F / −1–0 °C and grind through a 10 mm (3/8 in) plate, as Marianski does. A coarse grind is what lets the fried pieces stay juicy inside while the outside crisps.
3. Mix and cure: mix the meat with the salt, Cure #1 and sugar until it is tacky, then add the garlic, oregano, pepper, sour orange juice and paprika and mix until even. Fry a teaspoon: garlic and citrus first, then oregano. Cover and refrigerate 12 hours.
4. Stuff: stuff firmly into the narrow casing as one long rope and coil it. Prick air pockets.
5. Dry — in the fridge, not the sun: the tradition is two days hanging in the sun; Marianski reproduces it as two days at 68 °F / 20 °C. Warm drying of raw pork carries real risk without a controlled fermentation, so this recipe does it cold: lay the coils on a rack, uncovered, in the refrigerator for 48 hours, turning once. The casing tightens and darkens and the sausage loses a little water, which is what gives the fried pieces their firm bite.
6. Store: it is still a raw sausage. Keep it refrigerated and cook within 5 days, or freeze.
7. Fry — longaniza frita: cut into 2–3 in / 5–8 cm pieces. Put them in a heavy skillet with 1/4 in / 6 mm of water, cover, and cook over medium heat until the water is gone, 8–10 minutes; then fry in the fat they release, turning, until deeply browned and crisp, to 160 °F / 71 °C. Starting in water renders the fat and cooks the middle before the outside burns. Squeeze a little more sour orange over at the table.
8. Sibling recipe: the same sausage family in Mexico is Longaniza de Valladolid (Yucatecan Smoked Sausage), which uses sour orange too, with achiote and smoke.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The seasoning follows Clara González’s Dominican longaniza at Cocina Dominicana (pork, garlic, sour orange juice, oregano, salt, black pepper; between 25% and 50% pork fat; traditionally cured by hanging in the sun to dry; eaten fried), and the numbers start from Marianski’s “Longaniza Dominicana” (70/30 pork and back fat; 2.1% salt; Cure #1 2.5 g/kg; sugar; pepper; 0.6% sweet paprika; 0.6% oregano; 60 ml bitter-orange juice per kg; olive oil; 3/8 in plate; dry 2 days at 68 °F). Deviations: (1) salt 2.0% instead of 2.1%; (2) garlic doubled toward the Dominican recipe’s proportion; (3) olive oil dropped; (4) the two-day drying is moved into the refrigerator — this is the important one; (5) paprika made optional. Untested.

The annatto correction. The dive’s Caribbean page says Dominican longaniza “uses annatto too, for color”. Clara González names bija (achiote) as the Puerto Rican sausage’s colour and gives none for the Dominican one, and Marianski colours his Dominican formula with paprika. Neither published Dominican formula puts achiote in it; colour, where it is added, is paprika. The split the page draws still holds — Puerto Rico leads with achiote, the Dominican Republic with sour orange — it is just sharper than the page states.

Where Dominican longaniza came from. Longaniza is a Spanish sausage family and Hispaniola was the first Spanish colony in the Americas; pigs were landed there in 1493. Bitter orange is a Spanish import too, naturalised early. No first attestation for the Dominican longaniza as a named product is documented.

Sun-drying, plainly. Hanging fresh sausage in tropical sun for two days relies on salt, garlic, acid and drying, without a measured cure or a culture. It is the tradition and it is described here as one; it is not a method to copy in a home without temperature control.

Variations. Spicier: add 0.1% cayenne or a spoon of hot sauce (Marianski’s suggestion). Some Dominican makers add a little vinegar instead of, or with, the orange. A caseless home version is formed by hand into finger-thick logs, refrigerated overnight and fried. Commercial longaniza is often in artificial casing.

Sourcing and gear. Sour (Seville) oranges in Latin markets in winter; bottled naranja agria works; or use 2 parts orange juice to 1 part lime. Dominican oregano (Lippia) is sold by Latin grocers; Mexican oregano is the nearest substitute.

Still open. No Dominican commercial maker’s formula with weights has been compared against this one.

The photo. No open-licensed photograph of Dominican longaniza exists; the photograph shows bitter (sour) oranges, the juice that seasons it.

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