Hi all - I read this article this morning in my news feed about chorizo in Goan food:
I am interesting in trying to make this sausage and am wondering if anyone on here has a recipe they like or has eaten it and can weigh in on whether this one recipe I’ve found so far is even remotely accurate:
The use of bacon and tequila in the recipe as shortcuts makes a certain amount of sense (reading the author’s reasoning - not going to smoke it outside for 3 days, can’t get the traditional coconut or cashew based liquor that is used), but I am curious if anyone has any reliable recipes they can point me at before I try “recipe of some dude on the internet”. Thanks!
I very much enjoy Chorizo. I’ll cook it & mix it with all manner of things. Eggs, rice, spaghetti, mashed potatoes and even Mac & Cheese.
I always seem to find it on sale or on “clearance” at my local grocery store, so I’ll buy it and into the freezer it goes. It comes in quite handy for those nights when I have to do a “throw together” meal.
Mac & Cheese with Chorizo is one of my favorite “guilty pleasure” treats.
I think that Goan Sausage Recipes vary a lot. It is not a standard Recipe and each Family or Butcher has their own “Secret”.
The one that I was taught while in Goa is not smoked, but Air dried. So Bacon looks like an odd choice to me. Pork Leg, Belly and or Shoulder seem a better choice.
It did contain Feni (Cashew Fruit Liquor) which I guess Silver Tequila is a reasonable sub.
The Seasonings all look right to me though missing Nutmeg and not using weight for measurements is not good.
Unfortunately my recipe is not available to me right now or I would share it with you.
This Recipe looks better to me than the one that you referenced.
The Pork should be about 40% Fat.
Hope you have fun making it and Goa Sausage is SUPER delicious (like most Goan Food)!
Thank you for that link! I don’t think the liquor stores in the Boston area have Feni, but I’ll take a look. I’ve got mezcal in the house right now, but no tequila.
If the Mezcal is Joven/Plata that should be fine. If it is aged in Wood(reposado/añejo) or Smoky (like Oaxacan ones often are) I would not use it.
Cachaça or White Rum would be a closer match. Both should be available around Boston.
Goa sausage is funky, really funky. I had a strong aversion to it as a kid (which didn’t help much because my dad loved it so much, so we ate it anyway, usually in the standard onion-potato stir-fry).
This article read well to me. I saw a interesting show about how it’s made when I was in India, will try to find it.
Main ingredients: (fatty) pork, palm or cane vinegar (strong, malty), red chilies, garlic (more), ginger (less or not at all), scant spices (maybe cumin, cloves, pepper, scant cinnamon).
I haven’t seen feni as an ingredient, really, and booze is expensive in India so it’s unlikely to be somewhere random. (Maybe the recipe was trying to get at the flavor of palm vinegar a different way, but malt vinegar would have been an easier path.)
(I kinda hate Vir Sanghvi, but that’s neither here nor there, lol.)
Feni was definitely used in the Home that I was taught in. I think that it is to help “clean” the Meat at least partially. This same technique is used in making Preserved Meats in China.
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BarneyGrubble
(Beethoven and Latina singer fan in Ottawa)
16
Here’s link to Goan recipes. Unfortunately Hilda Mascarenhas passed a few years ago.
I’ve been going down a bit of a rabbit hole on this tonight. In addition to the many helpful Web sites and videos posted tonight, I also found this travel program on YouTube tonight:
The presenter meets with a woman who makes this at about 12:56 in the video. I like the idea of soaking the casing in vinegar as a hedge against blow outs when making links.
I have no idea how I would get mango leaves for the smoking process
That’s a good point. I could check with BF’s parents. They are down there on the Gulf side. And Amazon does also seem to carry them. Coconut husks seem a little harder to come by (short of, well, buying coconut and drying the shells). Still, the videos make it seem like the aim is to cold smoke and I don’t have a set up for that at the moment. To do any of the drying for links, I think I would need to buy a dehydrator, at least. The lowest my oven goes is 175F. Honestly, to start with, I think I would just try making it as a bulk style, without casings, and freeze it in portions. It might not develop the funk, but it’s a foot in the door to trying out the flavors. I think one of the links called it goa sausage maas (presumably because of the color/heat?).
Oh, and I just came across this Goan Feijoada. I think I need to make this once I figure out the sausage.
