Cachorrinho à Moda do Porto
(ka-shoo-REEN-yoo ah MOH-dah doo POR-too)
The Weeknight Tasca: Quick Bites & Sandwiches
Six in the evening at a noisy Porto tasca, the hot flat-top grill hisses, the cheese blisters, and the cachorrinho is a baguette flattened until fiercely crispy, stuffed with smoked pork, bound by oozing cheese, and brushed with spicy chili butter. Bartenders press these to order and hack them into bite-sized pieces to share alongside a cold Super Bock. The real secret to making it work in a suburban kitchen is brushing the inside of a skinny supermarket baguette with butter before pressing, essentially frying the bread from the inside out. Slice it into two-inch bites, open a cold beer, and eat it standing up.
Before you start
Hollow the bread.
Scrape out a small amount of the soft white interior of the baguette to maximize the crust-to-crumb ratio before buttering, ensuring a shattering crunch.
Ingredients
- skinny French baguette1 med
- mild fresh Italian pork sausage4 oz
- Portuguese linguiça4 oz
- mild Gouda cheese4 slices
- unsalted butter3 tbsp
- piri piri hot sauce1 tbsp
Method
- 01
Prepare the finishing glaze.
In a small bowl, whisk together one tablespoon of the melted butter with the piri-piri sauce and set aside.
- 02
Butter the inside of the bread.
Brush the remaining two tablespoons of melted butter generously over the inside crumb of both baguette halves to guarantee that authentic, internally fried texture.
- 03
Sear the meats.
Heat a skillet or panini press over medium-high heat, smashing the raw fresh sausage flat into a long rectangle matching the bread's length, and place the split linguiça flat-side down next to it.
- 04
Cook until deeply browned.
Let the meats cook for 4 to 5 minutes until the fresh sausage is cooked through and the smoked linguiça develops crispy edges.
- 05
Assemble the sandwich.
Lay the cooked fresh sausage and linguiça side-by-side on the bottom half of the buttered baguette, layer the Gouda directly over the hot meat, and close the sandwich.
- 06
Press mercilessly.
Place the entire sandwich into a hot panini press (or a skillet weighed down by a heavy cast-iron pan) and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until the bread is flattened, undeniably crispy, and the cheese oozes down the sides.
- 07
Glaze, chop, and share.
Transfer to a cutting board, brush the hot top crust generously with the spicy butter glaze, and use a heavy serrated knife to forcefully hack the sandwich into one-inch communal bites.
Notes
Choose the right bread.
The American instinct is a soft hot dog bun, but a skinny, crusty baguette is non-negotiable to survive the aggressive flattening of the press.
Sausage substitutions.
If you cannot find linguiça, a mild smoked Spanish chorizo or Andouille sausage serves as a highly functional flavor analog.