Malaguena - an Andalucian sausage

Malaguena – an Andalucian sausage

This is the second review I have done of sausages made by Mariano’s Spanish Goods, who are based in Christchurch. I purchased these from Moore Wilsons. Mariano’s Spanish Goods won the Cuisine Artisan Awards for this sausage in 2012 

This is an authentic Andalucian sausage, according to the packaging. The label says, “This succulent spicy sausage …. can be eaten whole or chopped to add life to a salad or mixed dish. The full meaty flavour is accented with hot overtones of chilli and black pepper, making the Malaguena a sausage to remember.” So the marketing puts the sausage in a positive light (as all marketing aims to do). 

The ingredients are listed as 85% pork, 15% pork fat, garlic, salt, black pepper, cayenne, and paprika. 

So what was the sausage like? 

The aim of this blog is cut through the label’s PR spin and offer a perspective of the world of sausages from my point of view. If I like the sausage, I’ll say so. And if I am not keen, I'll voice this opinion too. Of course your view may differ from mine, however in the glory of self-publishing we can all be experts in our chosen field. 

This sausage is hand made. The skins are tubes and are not closed at each end. The sausage handled better than the Butifarra, see review. They cooked nicely with a bit of oozing from the casing. A reasonable amount of liquid came out of the sausage during cooking. I also may have overcooked the sausage a little bit. I am a male and I was having a conversation with my wife, talking to the son about his day at school, cooking sausages and also making a vegetable stir fry. Doing all this multitasking at once, may be considered by many to be beyond most males. And maybe that’s also the case in my house, given the snags were slightly over cooked. 

They were served with a stir fry vege dish, flavoured with garlic, ginger and fresh basil leaves. 

These sausages were very good. They are a soft medium grind. A nice texture to eat. They were hot in taste and this complemented the free range pork.  One of the key issues with spicy hot sausages is getting the balance right between hotness and meat. In too many hot sausages the spice is overpowering, and is the only taste you get on your palate. This is not case in this sausage, the hotness of paprika and cayenne complimented the taste of the meat. My son thought they were good, he described, “the chilli as quite mild.” Number two son, aka Sausage Boy, said they were “very good.” My wife described them by saying, “I loved them, the chilli was nicely balanced with the meat, it was not overpowering. I would love to eat them again.” So as you can see the whanau were keen. So was I and I will happily be purchasing again, just to keep in the good books of my wife. These were an excellent sausage, well worth trying - again and again.

These suasages are gluten free, they have no nitrates and no additives. Just meat and flavours.

Cost per packet: $10.95 – six snarlers in the packet