Goan chouriço — choris in Konkani, Goa sausage in English — is the hot, sour, brick-red pork sausage of Goa, the former Portuguese territory on India’s west coast. Cubes of salted, pressed pork are marinated in a paste of red chillies, garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric, pepper, cloves and cinnamon ground in coconut-toddy vinegar and finished with feni, stuffed into casing, tied into chains of small round links and dried in the sun or over the kitchen fire. It is never eaten raw: it goes into choris pão (sausage in bread), choris pulao, or a chilli fry with onions and potatoes. The diagnostic detail is the vinegar. Portuguese chouriço keeps because it dries in cool Atlantic air; Goa’s monsoon air will not dry anything, so the Goan version is pickled — vinegar, spirit, heavy salt and chilli standing in for the drying the climate took away. The other detail is texture: the pork is cut, not ground, so a slice shows chunks of meat and fat in red paste. The sausage arrived with Portuguese rule, which began in 1510, and was Indianised over the centuries that followed. I have not made this one yet; the formula is built from the traditional Goan method and Portuguese chouriço practice and is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 1,590 g (3 lb 8 oz) pork shoulder — 70%
- 680 g (1 lb 8 oz) pork belly, skin off — 30%
CURE (% of meat weight)
- 57 g fine salt (2.5%)
- 5.7 g Cure #1 (0.25%) — 2.5 g/kg = 156 ppm nitrite
MASALA (% of meat weight)
- 68 g dried Kashmiri chillies, stems and most seeds removed (3%)
- 23 g dried hot red chillies (Goan or byadgi; or chiles de árbol) (1%)
- 91 g garlic (4%)
- 45 g fresh ginger (2%)
- 11 g cumin seed (0.5%)
- 7 g black peppercorns (0.3%)
- 7 g turmeric (0.3%)
- 4.5 g cinnamon (0.2%)
- 2.3 g cloves (0.1%)
- 160 g coconut or palm (toddy) vinegar (7%) — or cane vinegar
- 45 g cashew or coconut feni (2%) — or brandy
- 32–35 mm natural hog casing, about 4 m (13 ft)
- Cotton string
Directions
Key ingredients
Black Pepper · Cinnamon · Turmeric
- In the collection: Turmeric and Cinnamon are part of the masala; the closest paste in the collection is Vindaloo Paste (Vinha d’Alhos), which shares the vinegar-and-garlic ancestry. The Portuguese parent is Portuguese Recipe - Homemade Chouriço.
- Cut, salt and press: cut the pork into 1 cm (⅜ in) cubes, keeping fat and lean together. Toss with the salt and Cure #1, put in a colander over a bowl, set a plate and 4–5 kg (10 lb) of weight on top, and refrigerate 24 hours. Drain, turn, press another 24 hours. This is the Goan basket-and-stone step: it pushes out water so the vinegar does not dilute and the sausage dries faster.
- Make the masala: soak the chillies in the vinegar for an hour, then grind everything except the feni to a smooth paste in a blender, using only the vinegar as liquid. Stir in the feni.
- Marinate: mix the pressed pork and the masala thoroughly, cover, and refrigerate 48 hours. The vinegar lowers the pH from the first minute; the cure and salt work in at the same time.
- Stuff and tie into beads: stuff into the casing, pushing the chunks in by hand through a wide horn. Tie with string every 4–5 cm (2 in) so you get a chain of small, round links — the Goan shape.
- Dry: hang at 12–15 °C / 54–59 °F and 70–75% relative humidity, or on a rack in the fridge with a fan, for 7–10 days, until they have lost 15–20% of their weight and the skin is dry and firm. In Goa they hang in the sun and then near the kitchen fire; an optional 4–6 hours of cold smoke under 25 °C / 77 °F gives that note.
- Store: refrigerate up to 1 month, freeze for longer. This is a cooking sausage — not for slicing raw.
- Cook: cut the links apart, simmer 10 minutes in a little water, then slit the casing, squeeze out the meat and fry with sliced onions, potatoes and green chillies until browned and 71 °C / 160 °F, about 15–20 minutes. Serve stuffed into bread rolls (choris pão), or cooked into a pulao.
- Sibling recipe: East Indian Pork Sausage (Bombay Bottle-Masala Sausage) is the parallel Catholic-Indian sausage from Mumbai.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The method follows the traditional Goan sequence found consistently in Goan home recipes and the encyclopedic description: pork cut into chunks and heavily salted, pressed and drained for a day or two, marinated in a masala of red chillies, garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric, pepper, cloves and cinnamon ground in vinegar and finished with feni, stuffed, tied into small links, sun-dried or smoked. Deviations: (1) Cure #1 at 156 ppm, which Goan home recipes do not use; (2) a controlled drying room instead of the sun; (3) quantities are a working balance — Goan family recipes rarely give weights; (4) brandy or cane vinegar as substitutes where feni and toddy vinegar are unavailable. Untested.
Where Goan chouriço came from. Afonso de Albuquerque took Goa for Portugal in 1510, and Portuguese rule lasted until 1961. Portuguese settlers and missionaries brought pork chouriço — pork, garlic, wine, paprika, dried in the air. Over the following centuries Goan Catholic cooks rebuilt it: toddy vinegar in place of wine, the American chilli (which reached India with Portuguese trade in the sixteenth century) in place of paprika, local spices, and heavier salt and acid because the monsoon defeats air-drying. So 1510 is a conquest date, not a birthday. Pork remained central to the Goan Catholic table, which is why the sausage is concentrated where the Catholic community is.
The name. Chouriço is Portuguese; Konkani choris; English ‘Goa sausage’. Choris pão is sausage in a bread roll, a Goan street and snack food.
Variations. Some families use beef (Goan beef sausage); some add tamarind or less chilli; some smoke heavily, some sun-dry only; dry and ‘wet’ (less dried, more vinegary) styles are sold.
Sourcing and gear. Kashmiri chillies give colour with moderate heat; Goan or byadgi chillies add heat. Coconut vinegar is sold in Filipino and Indian groceries; feni (cashew or coconut) is now imported in some US states. A heavy weight and a colander for pressing; a wide horn because the meat is cubed.
Still open. No published scientific study of Goan sausage safety, pH or drying schedule has been found; the Portuguese-era recipe it descends from is not documented in a Goan source.
Read more on the site. India and Goa