These little homemade beauties may not be anywhere close to authentic fermented, dried and hung-for-weeks chorizo, but for flavour they are unbeatable.
Serve these for breakfast with scrambled eggs containing some finely chopped green chilli for a great version of huevos rancheros and really impress your weekend guests.
Genuine chorizo are hung in cool, dry places and left for weeks before they’re ready. You should be aware that this recipe does not contain the ingredients necessary for you to do this safely!.
Ingredients for the sausages:
500g minced pork plus some extra pork fat in one piece (about 100g)
1 Onion
2 Cloves of garlic
2 Small red chillies (use one for less heat)
1 Tbsp paprika
1 Tsp sea salt
50ml Red wine (preferably old and oxidised)
1 Tsp Sherry vinegar
First a little about sausage making at home
Not everyone has access to commercial sausage stuffing machinery and so you might think it impossible to make your own at home. Far from it. In fact, if you only want to make a few sausages then big expensive bits of kit are a positive disadvantage. The ideal solution for the home kitchen is to invest in the mincing and sausage stuffing attachment for your food processor.
Here in the cookery school we use Kenwood Chef processors and the mincing attachment is easy to use, easy to clean and not expensive. If you don’t have a food processor then get yourself a hand mincer with a sausage stuffing attachment. These are easy to come by and inexpensive – but you’ll need three hands to make sausages with one so, phone a friend! It is possible to use a strong piping bag with a sausage stuffing nozzle but it’s a bit of a hassle. If you don’t have access to anything that will allow you to make the sausages then simply turn the mix into meatballs – roasted in the oven they would be lovely with some guacamole and soft floury tortillas.
Finally, the sausage skins. The very best are natural hog casings and you should be able to get some from your butcher without a problem. If you want to really get into sausage making then you can buy skins on-line.
Making the Chorizo-style Sausages
1. Begin by very finely chopping the onion and frying it in a little oil until it begins to soften
2. Crush the garlic and chilli together into a paste and stir into the onions. Fry very gently for one minute and add the paprika. Stir everything together and transfer to a mixing bowl.
3. Deglaze the pan with the red wine, reducing it slightly and add the wine to the onions. We suggest you use red wine that has been open for a few days and past its best. The vinegary-ness helps. Add the sherry vinegar and the salt and mix thoroughly. Allow to cool.
4. Meanwhile using a sharp knife cut the pork fat into half centimetre cubes and mix the fat with the mince.
5. Once the onion and wine mix has cooled sufficiently add the pork mix and using your hands (and some disposable gloves if you wish) combine all the ingredients thoroughly
6. Prepare your sausage skins in water and load them on to the stuffing nozzle of your machine or a mincer that is set up for stuffing (ie without the mincing disk and with a nozzle attached).
7. Fill the skins to your preferred diameter and tie them into sausage links or for bolitas tie them with string every few centimetres to create a string of golf ball sized sausages. It may take you a couple of attempts to become familiar with this process but persevere! No-one gets it right the very first time but once you’ve got it down pat you’ll be making sausages all the time!
8. Leave your sausages to firm up and mature for 24 hours in the fridge before use. If you attempt to cook them straight away the skins will split.
Cooking the Sausages
To cook the sausages we advise you pan-fry, or grill, because oven cooking sausages with a high meat content can make them taste dry. If you like your sausages to stay nice and moist you can poach them in gently boiling water for five minutes before frying or grilling, that way they will be cooked through even if you just lightly brown in the pan or under the grill.
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