Food

Chorizo are delicious hot red sausages, strongly flavoured with paprika and fennel. Apparently they're originally from Iberia, but they're popular in lots of Hispanic and Portuegese cuisine. They can be smoke-dried and stored like salami, but they can also be made as fresh sausages (Anthony Bourdain swears by them) and they're easy, fun and very tasty things to cook with.

This is by no means a definitive or "authentic" recipe, but it makes some damn tasty chorizo.

Ingredients

1 pound of fatty pork, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1 teaspoon of hot paprika
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (this stuff can be hard to get hold of, but get it if you can. The flavour is absolutely unparalleled - whatever you go through and whatever you pay to get hold of it, the first sniff of that amazing aroma will make it all worthwhile! If you can't get it, just use a teaspoon of mild paprika.
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
A few grinds of black pepper

Throw it all in the food processor, and mince it down to a fine paste. Then refrigerate the mix for at least three hours (preferably 24) to let all the flavours mingle. Trust me, it's worth the wait. Then the paste can be stuffed into skins and used as sausages or (my personal favourite because it's easy!), you can just roll it into balls.

When you're ready to use them just fry them in a little oil until they're turning brown. I use them pretty much anywhere you'd use meatballs or sausages - particularly in sandwiches (chorizo sub with cheese, anyone?) or with pasta (they go wonderfully well with shellfish and a good vinegary tomato sauce). They freeze well, too.

Labels: barbecue pork, cayenne, chorizo, fennel seeds, Garlic, meatballs, paprika, Pasta, sausage, smoked paprika