Sobrasada de Mallorca

A fermented, dry-cured sausage that is never firm — it cures for two to seven months and comes out a soft, brick-red, spreadable paste for bread. It’s the strangest product in this whole set and the best one to explain, because it breaks every rule of dry curing on purpose: more fat than lean, ground finer than anything else, stopped at 30% weight loss instead of 40%, and success defined by FAILING to firm up.

Ingredients

• MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb green), % of total meat weight (inside the IGP limits: lean 30–60%, fat 40–70%, pimentón 4–7%):
• 1,135 g (2 lb 8 oz) lean pork (leg/ham) — 50%
• 568 g (1 lb 4 oz) pork back fat — 25%
• 568 g (1 lb 4 oz) LEAF (kidney) fat — 25% — soft, low-melting; this is why it never sets (see notes)
• 57 g salt (2.5%)
• 5.7 g Cure #2 (0.25% = 156 ppm)
• 4.5 g dextrose (0.2%), 4.5 g sugar (0.2%)
• 68 g pimentón dulce (3.0%) + 68 g pimentón picante (3.0%) — total 6% ≈ a cup and a half; adjust the split for heat, keep the total 4–7%
• 4.5 g garlic powder (0.2%), 2.3 g dried oregano (0.1%)
• Culture (or none, the traditional route); Mold-600
• Natural casing — traditionally budell cular (bung) or thick hog; wide is fine, you’re not slicing it

Directions

1. Key ingredients: this is the fat-forward, spreadable extreme of the pimentón family — its firm, sliceable opposite is Chorizo Español (Dry-Cured Spanish Chorizo).
2. Use leaf fat: kidney/leaf fat is soft and low-melting where back fat is hard. At 25% it’s the single biggest reason the paste never sets. Most charcuterie tells you to avoid soft fat; sobrasada requires it.
3. Grind twice: 10 mm first pass, then 3 mm, meat refrozen between passes. At 3 mm the mixture behaves like a coarse emulsion, not a granular forcemeat (the IGP just says <6 mm).
4. Ferment SLOW: traditional Mallorcan sobrasada uses no culture and no added nitrate — salt, pimentón and time in a cool sequer, pH falling on its own. If you use a culture, stop at pH ~5.3 for the traditional flavor rather than fast-fermenting to 4.9.
5. Dry: 13 °C / 55 °F, 80% RH, minimum 8 weeks (IGP allows up to 6 months by caliber).
6. Stop at 30–32% weight loss — then stop: more drying makes it firm, which defeats the entire point.
7. The 6% pimentón is a bulk ingredient here: it binds free water, and its carotenoids are a real antioxidant protecting a 50–70% fat sausage across six months of aerobic drying.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Two Guys & A Cooler’s composition (the only complete home formula with the leaf-fat insight), inside the IGP limits, with the fermentation slowed toward the traditional profile.

Why it stays spreadable — three deliberate mechanisms. (1) Leaf fat, soft and low-melting, at 25%. (2) The 3 mm grind, a coarse emulsion rather than a forcemeat. (3) 6% pimentón acting as a bulk dry ingredient that binds water. Every one is the opposite of normal dry-cure practice.

The teaching point. Sobrasada is the exception that proves every rule: more fat than lean, finest grind, stopped early, success = not firming. If one page forces a reader to understand WHY the normal rules exist, it’s this one, because every rule is broken here on purpose and for a reason.

Sourcing. Leaf/kidney fat (ask the butcher specifically); real pimentón at cup-and-a-half quantities. Colorants are expressly prohibited by the IGP — the color is all paprika.

*Still open.Ruhlman & Polcyn and Marianski are both on my shelf — the places to cross-check this.