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Best Chistorra in London

A fast-cure sausage with 70-80% fat content, wrapped in lamb tripe and seasoned with paprika into a bright-red rope.

Chistorra

What the real thing tastes like

Chistorra (pronounced [tʃis̺ˈtora], Basque: txistor) is a type of fast-cure sausage from Navarre, Spain. It can be considered a special type of chorizo. It is made of minced pork, or a mixture of minced pork and beef, is encased in either lamb tripe or plastic and has a fat content that varies between 70 and 80%. The sausage is flavoured with garlic, salt and paprika, which gives it a bright-red colour. It is usually baked, fried or grilled and often accompanies other dishes, sometimes as part of tapas. The final cured product tends to be thinner than traditional chorizo or sausage, with a diameter of approximately 25 mm. The sausages average 40 cm (16 in) in length, though there are cases when they reach up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long. In the Aragonese Pyrenees, there are two different types of chistorra: one made only of pork meat and another made of lungs, boned pig head and the pancreas, called berica. The local variety of chistorra available in the province of León is called Chistorra

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Chistorra is a fast-cured sausage from Navarre that collapses the line between chorizo and fresh meat. Minced pork (sometimes with beef) gets wrapped in lamb tripe or casing, seasoned with garlic, salt, and paprika into a bright-red rope about the thickness of your thumb—40 centimeters long, though some stretch to a meter. It's lean on technique but fat-heavy in construction, meant to be baked, fried, or grilled into something crisp that plays well alongside other dishes.

Order it here when it has

  • Versatile cooking methods (baked, fried, grilled)
  • Distinct bright-red color from paprika
  • Thinner, more delicate structure than traditional chorizo

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