First and foremost, the real thing must be made exclusively from pork. No other meat is allowed to be added. However, meat must come from various parts of the fattening pig, such as the leg, the rib, the loin or rump; otherwise the sausage will be too fatty or too lean. Therefore, in contrast with salamis, no additional lard is needed for the Csaba sausage.
Old recipes for the Csaba sausage stipulate hog casings, i.e. the rectum and an approximately 1.5-metre long piece of the connecting colon (called ‘kuláré’). This ensures that a treasured feature of the Csaba sausage, namely its juiciness, is preserved. Then the sausage will not be dry even when it is a year old, say.
A key spice of the Csaba sausage is ground red paprika. Although, in addition to ground red paprika and salt, caraway and garlic are also among the ingredients, neither salt, nor caraway, nor garlic should be too conspicuous, as they may stifle each other. Rather, they should blend with each other in harmony – with the colour, taste and the spicy hotness of the ground red paprika playing the main role. Hot spicy paprika is an indispensable spice, because the genuine Csaba sausage should be hot or at least quite hot. At the same time, édesnemes (a type of red ground paprika) is also needed, as it adds colour to the meat. The real thing is bright red and should also please the eye; it is never yellowish or colourless.
Smoking gives a special flavour to the Csaba sausage. Once straw or cornstalk was used for smoking in open flues. Today, beech sawdust or corncob is used instead.
In summary, the Csaba sausage is made from pork seasoned with ground red paprika. It is neither crumbly nor dry. It is a juicy, spicy hot and bright red cured delicacy that has a slightly smoky taste.
(https://bekescsaba.hu/en/the-csaba-sausage)
The ORIGINAL Csabai Sausage Recipe
Ingredients:
10 kg of mixed pork from pigs raised within a 40-km radius of Békéscsaba (thigh, shoulder, fat, trimmings, in a ratio of approximately 70–75% meat to 25–30% fat)
15 dkg of sweet, ground paprika
10 dkg hot, ground paprika (The ratio of sweet to hot paprika can vary individually.)
18 dkg table salt
7 dkg finely chopped garlic
3 dkg cumin (whole)
Preparation:
Grind the chilled mixture of pork and bacon to a consistency of 6–8 mm and knead it together with the spices (listed above).
Stuff the spiced meat mixture into thin pork casings, thick pork casings, beef silk casings, or water-permeable synthetic casings.
Thread the stuffed sausages onto a smoking rack and cold-smoke them (max. 18°C) using hardwood: 2–3 days for thin sausages and 6–8 days for thick sausages.
Afterward, dry them through cold curing: thin sausages for 2 weeks and thick sausages for 5–6 weeks.
The Csabai sausage is an attractive, well-sliced meat product consisting of evenly minced, mixed meat and bacon particles. The cut surface is marbled and has a firm texture.