Bocadillo Catalán de Botifarra

Bocadillo de botifarra is Catalan, or entrepà de botifarra if you name it where it lives: fresh botifarra crua, crusty bread, allioli, and often a rub of ripe tomato on the bread. What makes it Catalan is not a pile of fillings. It is the sausage, coarse and porky, cooked over embers or a hot plancha, then carried by bread that can hold the juices without turning soft.

The method that decides it is the heat. Botifarra wants moderate heat, not a furnace. If you blast it, the casing splits early and the fat runs out; cook it more slowly, turn it often, and the skin browns just as the centre reaches 71°C. Do not prick it. A pierced sausage dries itself out, and then what have we learned.

Far from Catalonia, ask for longaniza fresca if a Spanish butcher has it. If not, choose a fresh mild pork sausage in a natural casing, coarse-ground if possible, with no fennel, sage, smoke, sugar, or chilli. It will taste less clean and more spiced than botifarra, but it will behave properly on the grill. No hace falta haber pisado España. Use good bread, make the allioli before the sausage touches the fire, and it comes together.

In the Margin beside this one I wrote only: no pinchar, don't pierce. That is the whole warning. Siempre sale, si lo sigues: moderate heat, good bread, and the sandwich eaten while the sausage is still glossy from the grill.