Here’s Why You Should Always Cool Off Your Linguica When It’s Hot

I'm going to cut right to the point: if you plan on cooking up linguica anytime soon, make sure you soak up this cooking tip.

By now I'm sure your curiosity level is through the roof, seeing how the photo above is a bit unorthodox. It appears to be some type of hand-dug swimming pool for meat and you'd actually be correct.

Over the weekend, I took a little drive up north to New Hampshire to meet up with a buddy. He has his own smokehouse for barbeque and slow-cooking and can smoke almost any meat you bring to him. Well, in this particular case, I was all about the linguica. Not just any linguica that you can just pick up in the grocery store; these had homemade casings and fresh local pork.

The smell was so phenomenal, it was enough to make anyone drool.

Upon arrival, I noticed he had dug a hole in the ground that could fit a body and was draped by a blue tarp and surrounded by snow and ice. He filled up the hole with cold water and let it cool down while the meat was being smoked.

Once the links were ready to be pulled from the smoker, he tossed them right into the water which allowed for an ice bath for the hot linguica.

"It keeps the skin from shriveling up and curbs the cooking process," he said. "Keep it submerged for a good 10 minutes, then let it hang overnight to dry up. The next day, wrap them in shrink wrap and then freeze them."

Each one of his links was 12-14 inches and tied off on each end as individual links rather than the giant links that most butcher shops will make prior to cutting them to size. Regardless, if you were ever wondering about the post process of cooking linguica, whether they're patties or links, this could be a helpful guide for anyone curious about an old fashioned way of preparing smoked meats.

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