is a Spanish meat delicacy that is remembered the first time and for the rest of your life.

It has a bright red color, which gives it a large amount of paprika, and the same bright taste of pork meat.

The country of Spain is famous for Chorizo ​​sausage, which is known throughout the world for its sausages, which you can eat like this or cook amazingly delicious dishes with them.

Chorizo ​​is also popular in Mexico, but there it is much hotter due to the chili pepper included in its composition.

And in Portugal, chorizo ​​is called sausage, and absolutely everything. We will also offer you one of the recipes for Portuguese chorizo.

Spanish Chorizo ​​Sausage Recipe

Ingredients:

• 850 g lean pork ham
• 150 g lard
• 23 g nitrite salt
• 10 ml white wine
• 2 cloves garlic
• 15 g each sweet and smoked paprika
• 2 g black pepper
• 2 g sugar
• 1 m pork casing

Smoked paprika in Spain is an indispensable component of many dishes. This is what gives chorizo ​​its unforgettable taste.

How to make Spanish chorizo ​​sausage at home:

1. The lard needs to be soaked in cool water for about two hours, then cut into slices about a centimeter thick and put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. First cut the pork ham into small cubes, then chop into mince with a large, heavy knife.

Traditionally, minced chorizo ​​is prepared only this way, and not in a meat grinder. To make it easier, after slicing, you can put the meat cubes in the freezer for 3 hours, and then scroll through the largest grate of the meat grinder.

3. Remove the lard and chop finely.

4. Mix the minced meat with lard, chopped garlic, wine, nitrite salt and finely ground spices and refrigerate for 24-36 hours.

5. Soak the pork casing briefly in cool water, rinse off the salt and stuff it evenly and tightly with minced meat.

6. Tie the long sausage into several small ones with twine and put it in the refrigerator for 12-16 hours to preserve its shape.

7. Hang the sausages in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight, for example, on a glassed-in loggia for 10-12 hours

8. Place in the refrigerator overnight. Repeat this for 5 days.

9. Leave to ripen in the refrigerator, turning them from side to side from time to time, for 3-6 days.

The sausage is ready when it has lost 30-40% in weight and becomes firm and elastic.

Homemade Chorizo ​​sausage goes on sandwiches, with beer and wine, and in various Spanish dishes.

How to Make Mexican Chorizo ​​Sausage

Ingredients:

• 2.25 pork loin
• 2 heads of garlic
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• a little cumin seeds (grind)
• 50 ml each of tequila and red wine vinegar
• salt - 1 tbsp. spoon
• 3 m pork casing

Set of spices:

• 6 g oregano
• 18 g paprika
• 8 g cayenne pepper
• 10 g hot chili pepper
• 8 g ground black pepper

The end result must be spicy if you want Mexican chorizo.

Mexican Chorizo ​​Recipe:

1. Chop the meat as in the previous recipe, mix with crushed garlic and cool in the refrigerator.

2. Pour in tequila and vinegar, stir.

3. Add salt and all spices and stir for 5-10 minutes.

4. Stuff the soaked and washed casings. You need to bandage every 10-15 cm.

Can be grilled, pan-fried or barbecued.

Chorizo ​​in Portuguese

Ingredients:

• 5 kg boneless pork shoulder with lard
• 6 tbsp. l. red wine vinegar
• 6 tbsp. l. no top smoked spanish sweet paprika
• 2 tbsp. l. dry garlic powder
• 8 tsp. coarse salt
• 2 tsp each cayenne pepper, freshly ground black pepper and ground cumin
• 1 tsp. dry marjoram
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• hot chili pepper to taste
• pork intestine for stuffing

Zira is considered a national spice in Portugal and is added to many dishes.

Portuguese Chorizo ​​Recipe:

1. Cut the meat into strips 3 cm wide, add wine and all the spices, mix. Place in the refrigerator for a day.

2. Remove, scroll through a meat grinder with a 14 mm grid or finely chop the meat. Beat for half an hour and immediately fill the intestines.

3. Twist into individual sausages and hang in a cool place overnight.

4. In the morning, smoke on the grill for about 3 hours until the internal temperature is 65-70C.

If you want to cook cold smoked Portuguese chorizo, leave them in the smokehouse for a day after smoking at a temperature of 10-17 degrees. You need to add nitrite salt to the minced meat.

Chorizo ​​is a traditional dish originally from Spain, which is loved to be served both in popular restaurants and on the home dinner table.

The recipe for this dish is quite simple, but in different countries they add their own components to this dish, giving it a Latin American or European flavor. You can eat chorizo ​​as an independent dish, or use it for making barbecues, soups, and so on. Thanks to this article, you can learn more about the traditional Spanish dish and learn how to cook it at home.

Chorizo ​​- what is it?

Chorizo ​​is a specially prepared wine sausage that is particularly spicy and is widespread in Spanish and Latin American cooking. The main spice for making sausage is paprika, which gives it the corresponding specific characteristics.

Latin Americans add hot chili sauce instead of paprika. It should be noted that a distinctive feature of the dish is that the meat for their production is chopped into large pieces, but in some countries the meat is still ground during cooking. Chorizo ​​can be found on sale in raw smoked or dry-cured form, but freshly prepared homemade sausage will have a completely different taste.

How to make chorizo ​​sausage at home

Chorizo ​​is an excellent dish that cannot be forgotten after trying it just once. Traditionally, Spanish sausages have a bright red color and an equally bright taste, which is an excellent reason to prepare the dish at home. Before you start cooking, you should stock up on a number of products: a meter of pork intestine, 850 grams of pork ham, 150 grams of pure lard, 25 grams of nitrite salt, 10 milliliters of white wine, 2 garlic cloves, 15 grams of sweet and 15 smoked paprika, as well as sugar , as a natural taste stimulant and black pepper.

First, you should soak the prepared lard in cool water, cut it into slices one centimeter thick, and then hide it in the refrigerator for half an hour. We cut the pork leg into cubes and then chop it into minced meat - this is precisely the peculiarity of chorizo, since the minced meat in the Spanish version is not passed through a meat grinder, but is chopped using a knife or hatchet. Then you need to take out the frozen lard and chop it finely with a knife.

The next step is to combine the products; here you need to mix the meat with lard. Crush two garlic cloves and add them to the mixture along with ground spices and nitrite salt. At the same stage, white wine is added, which in this case acts as a spice, then mix everything thoroughly. It is extremely important to use the listed products here, since it is nitrite salt and two types of paprika that play a big role in creating the real taste of sausages.

When ready, it should be tightly packed into a bowl and placed in the refrigerator, where it will stay for a little more than a day. It is also necessary to rinse and soak the pork casing before you start filling it. Now we fill the intestine tightly with minced meat, since difficulties may arise during the filling process due to a lack of hands, you can use a meat grinder with the appropriate function. It is important to control the progress of filling the womb so that the sausages are dense, but at the same time not too stuffed.

When the intestine is completely filled and the minced meat is over, you will need to cut one into several smaller sausages and tie them with twine. When everything is ready, put the product in the refrigerator for 12 hours so that the chorizo ​​takes shape before drying.

The drying process generally takes about five days, during which the sausages are hung in a dry and cool place for 12 hours, and then hidden in the refrigerator for another 12 hours. After five days, you need to put the sausages in the refrigerator for another five days so that they “ripen” well, and you should turn them over from time to time on the other side. An indicator of readiness will be a loss of the original weight by more than 30 percent and the presence of elastic hardness of the product.

Recipes for cooking with chorizo ​​sausages

In cooking, chorizo ​​can be used as an input to any dish, as an appetizer for wine or beer, and also to cover the surface of sandwiches. It all depends on the imagination of the cook and his preferences in cooking.

Scallops with chorizo

This is a very simple dish; to prepare it, you need to fry the scallops on both sides. Then fry the green and bell peppers, garlic and chorizo ​​sausages in a frying pan. After a few minutes, add the already fried scallops to the mixture and wait a few more minutes. Then put the contents of the pan on a plate and sprinkle with chopped green onions.

Pizza

Chorizo ​​has a very spicy and specific taste, so it goes well with almost any food. When cooking, you can simply replace the meat or sausages with chorizo ​​or combine chorizo ​​sausages with ready-made fillings.

Salad with sausages

To prepare a Spanish salad with chorizo, you will need: chorizo ​​itself, purple onion, garlic, vegetable oil and wine vinegar, parsley, basil and spices such as black pepper and salt. We cut all the ingredients into slices and fry the sausages, then place the processed products in layers on a plate and season them lightly with wine vinegar and oil, salt and pepper, and the salad is ready. If you don’t have sausages on hand and don’t know what to replace chorizo ​​with, you can add any spicy sausage to the dish.

Video recipe for soup with chorizo ​​and beans

This video discusses a recipe for making Spanish soup. In order to prepare this dish, you will need a number of ingredients, including: chorizo ​​sausages, onions and garlic, oregano, tomato paste, paprika and hot chili peppers, white and red beans, tomato paste and olive oil. With all of the above ingredients, you can cook a wonderful traditional Spanish soup. The entire process of preparing a dish is commented on and explained, for this reason cooking will become not only interesting, but also easy.

Delicious meat sausages with a smoky aroma are a traditional snack in Spain, the taste of which has become known to residents of many other countries. Sausages are popular in restaurants; they like to be served at the lunch table or dinner as an independent dish or in addition to hot dishes. Find out what types of chorizo ​​there are, familiarize yourself with the intricacies of preparing the meat delicacy.

What is chorizo

The products look like dry long scarlet sausages. Basically, chorizo ​​is a type of pork sausage that is prepared primarily in Portugal, Spain and Latin American countries. Dry ground paprika gives the dish its red color when cut and a spicy taste. Mexican cooks often use hot chili instead of this spice or even add a mixture of red pepper and paprika. Chorizo ​​also contains garlic, which gives the sausages a special piquancy and aroma. The basis for sausage can be not only pork, but also beef, donkey, horse meat, and mule meat.

Types of chorizo

Pork sausages can be completely different: hot, spicy, spicy-sweet and with other tastes, and this is not only because there are a huge number of varieties of these products. Chorizo ​​sausages are prepared in different recipes depending on the region of origin. The main producing countries of the meat delicacy are Mexico, Spain and Portugal.

Spanish chorizo ​​sausage

Cooks from the sunny country prepare sausages from coarsely chopped minced pork, and generously season them with pimento - hot, red, slightly smoked pepper. The last ingredient gives the products a characteristic scarlet hue, taste and smoky aroma. In addition, a large amount of white wine is added to the minced meat for Spanish chorizo, after which the minced pork is allowed to marinate with alcohol and spices.

In Spain, sausages are smoked or cured, and they come in different sizes and shapes, as you can see by looking at various photos. It is believed that short products are spicy and almost non-greasy, they are ideal to become a snack. Long, thick ones are fattier and sweeter, but they are better used as an additional ingredient when preparing hot dishes: soup, stew, paella. The most famous varieties of Spanish chorizo ​​are:

• soria - thick products made from pork loin;
• Le Leon - sausages, the minced meat for which is added with more garlic than when preparing classic ones;
• del Pyrenees - chorizo ​​dried on farms in the Central Pyrenees;
• pamplona - not too fatty, similar to salami.

Mexican

These chorizos are different from Spanish ones. Mexicans grind the minced meat using a meat grinder, and instead of paprika they put dried sweet peppers. It is not wine that is poured into the sausage, but vinegar. The main feature of chorizo ​​from Mexico is that they are sold raw: sausages in a natural casing are fried on the grill or in a frying pan before consumption, squeezing out like paste from a tube or kneading with a fork. The Mexican preparation is also mixed with other types of meat or used as a filling for tacos, burritos, etc.

Portuguese

These products are similar in taste and appearance to Spanish ones. The minced Portuguese chorizo ​​is made from minced pork and seasoned with garlic, wine, salt and pimento. The main feature of the sausages is that they contain a generous amount of pork blood, which is why they are called chourico de sangue - Portuguese blood chorizo. Such products are served in Portugal with feijoada, the national dish of Brazil.

Homemade chorizo ​​recipes

Sausages are one of the favorite dishes of every person who has ever managed to enjoy them. If you also like the unusual bright taste of traditional Spanish products or want to try the dish for the first time, prepare chorizo ​​yourself. Before starting the process, buy the necessary ingredients, and step-by-step recommendations will tell you how to cook sausages correctly and tasty.

Chorizo ​​in Spanish

• Time: 14 days 19 hours.
• Number of servings: 5 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 454 kcal/100 g.
• Purpose: for lunch/dinner.
• Difficulty: difficult.

Lovers of delicious food have long tried the national Spanish delicacy – chorizo. If you're wondering why these savory sausages are famous all over the world, be sure to make them yourself. Remember that the smoked paprika indicated in the list of ingredients cannot be replaced with anything, otherwise the finished dish will not acquire the traditional color and aroma.

Ingredients:

• lard – 150 g;
• white wine – 10 ml;
• sweet and smoked paprika – 15 g each;
• nitrite salt – 23 g;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• pork ham (low-fat) – 850 g;
• sugar – 2 g;
• black pepper – 2 g;
• pork casing - 1 m.

Cooking method:

1. Pour lard with cool water, leave for 2 hours, then cut into slices 1 cm thick. Place the workpiece in the cold for half an hour.
2. Cut the ham into small cubes, then chop them into minced meat by hand.
3. Finely chop the cooled lard.
4. Combine both preparations, season with wine, salt, finely chopped garlic, and spices. Leave the sausage base to cool for 36 hours.
5. Leave the pork casing in cool water, rinse, and stuff tightly with minced meat.
6. Tie a long sausage with twine, dividing it into several parts. Remove the sausages to cool for 16 hours.
7. Hang the almost finished chorizo ​​in a cool, dry, dark place for 10-12 hours. Place the preparations in the refrigerator overnight. Repeat steps for 5 days.
8. Place the products in the refrigerator to ripen, turning them periodically. After 6 days, the Spanish chorizo ​​will be completely cooked – firm and elastic.

Mexican

• Time: 3 hours 5 minutes.
• Number of servings: 10 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 442 kcal.
• Purpose: for lunch/dinner.
• Difficulty: difficult.

Such chorizo ​​is made mainly with pork blood, but when preparing sausages at home, this component can be missed. It is important to season homemade sausage with all the specified spices - this way the products will be spicy, like traditional Mexican ones. Check out step-by-step recommendations from experienced chefs who know how to cook chorizo ​​correctly and tasty.

Ingredients:

• pork intestine – 3 m;
• cumin (seeds) – 0.2 tsp;
• red wine vinegar, tequila – 50 ml each;
• garlic – 2 heads;
• salt – 1 tbsp. l.;
• oregano – 1 tbsp. l.;
• pork loin – 2.25 kg;
• cayenne pepper – 8 g;
• ground black pepper – 8 g;
• ground chili – 10 g;
• paprika – 18 g.

Cooking method:

1. Chop the pork loin by hand into as small pieces as possible. Mix the resulting mass with chopped garlic and refrigerate for an hour.
2. Pour vinegar and tequila into the chilled minced meat and stir.
3. Salt the meat product, add all the spices, stir the product for 10 minutes.
4. Soak and rinse the pork intestines. Stuff the prepared casings, tying them with twine every 15 cm.
5. Raw Mexican sausage can be grilled, pan-fried, or cooked in any other way.

In Portuguese

• Time: 15 hours.
• Number of servings: 20 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 453 kcal/100 g.
• Purpose: for lunch/dinner.
• Difficulty: difficult.

Such sausages can be brought to readiness in two ways: smoked on the grill or made cold smoked chorizo, leaving them in the smokehouse for a day, having previously been smoked at a temperature of 10-17 degrees. As for the ingredients, you definitely need to prepare cumin - without this national spice, the taste of the products will not be so bright. Find out how to make delicious Portuguese chorizo ​​at home.

Ingredients:

• nitrite salt – 8 tsp;
• garlic powder – 2 tbsp. l.;
• red wine vinegar – 6 tbsp. l.;
• pork shoulder with lard without bone – 5 kg;
• Spanish paprika – 6 tbsp. l.;
• dry marjoram – 1 tsp;
• hot chili – 0.5 tsp;
• pork casings - 6 m;
• cayenne pepper, ground black, cumin – 2 tsp each;
• ground coriander – 1 tsp.

Cooking method:

1. Cut the pork into pieces 3 cm thick, add all the spices, mix, and leave the workpiece to cool.
2. Twist the infused meat through the grill of a meat grinder (14 mm) or chop it finely.
3. Beat the pork for 30 minutes, stuff the intestines with minced meat.
4. Tie the casings with twine, forming sausages 15 cm long, and hang the chorizo ​​in a cool place overnight.
5. In the morning, smoke the products on the grill for 3 hours so that the temperature inside is 65-70 degrees.

Video

Chorizo ​​sausage- a very popular sausage product made from minced pork with the addition of wine and such an essential ingredient as paprika. It has an unusually pleasant spicy taste and an appetizing brown color (see photo). In Spain and Portugal, this delicacy is considered a national dish, and in these countries almost every housewife knows how to cook it. Chorizo ​​sausage is also prized in Mexico, and in this part of the world it is made according to a special recipe.

Today, this sausage can take the form of a sausage ring, a thin stick, or a thick loaf. In addition to its shape, this delicacy may differ in its filling characteristics; for example, in one country the meat for making chorizo ​​is chopped into large pieces, while in another it is chopped very finely. Of course, this does not affect the taste of the sausage in any way, and the delicacy turns out delicious in both cases.

There are two most popular varieties of chorizo ​​sausage: Spanish and Mexican. In the first case, the delicacy is prepared from fresh pork meat, and in the second - from raw smoked meat, therefore in Spain the sausage product is eaten only after drying, and in Mexico immediately after cooking.

How to select and store?

When choosing and storing chorizo ​​sausage, you should be extremely careful. When purchasing this delicacy, it is always recommended to study its composition, which under any conditions must be indicated on the product label. Very often, starter cultures are used to make such sausages, due to which it becomes possible to accelerate the ripening of the meat product. However, often when this substance is used, the delicacy acquires an unpleasant sourish taste. It is recommended to choose sausages that do not contain accelerators. Also remember to pay attention to what kind of paprika was used to make the chorizo. It can be sweet and spicy, and the taste of the sausage directly depends on this.

Dry-cured and uncooked smoked chorizo ​​sausage must be stored strictly in the refrigerator for no more than fourteen days. If the product is stored in sliced ​​form, its shelf life is less than one week.

In addition, chorizo ​​sausage can be frozen. If frozen, it can be stored for two months.

How to make chorizo ​​sausage at home?

Making chorizo ​​sausage at home is very easy, both Spanish and Mexican. The result in both cases is pleasantly surprising: the delicacies turn out incredibly tasty!

• Spanish dry-cured chorizo ​​sausage. To prepare this delicacy, one kilogram of fatty pork is thoroughly washed, dried with a towel and passed through a meat grinder with a large grid. Then prepare a mixture of sweet paprika (1 tbsp), ground black pepper (2 tsp), fennel seeds (1 tbsp) and freshly ground sea salt (25 g). The mixed ingredients are added to the minced pork. Following them, several chopped cloves of garlic and one hundred milliliters of red wine are added to the meat. The finished minced meat is well kneaded and put in the refrigerator for twelve hours to infuse. After the specified time, the sausage casing is prepared and the sausages are formed, which are then hung in a ventilated area for a month to dry.
• Mexican raw smoked chorizo ​​sausage. First of all, the pork intestines are soaked for thirty minutes, after which they are washed and put aside. Smoked pork shoulder (1.4 kg) and lard (250 g) are placed in one container and covered with the following spices: red pepper (6 tbsp), salt (1 tbsp), dried garlic (40 g) , oregano (1 tsp), ground cinnamon (0.5 tsp), cumin (0.5 tsp), black pepper (0.5 tsp) and cloves (2 g) . The meat is mixed well and placed in the refrigerator for two hours to soak. After this time, the pork and lard are twisted in a meat grinder and beaten with a mixer for sixty seconds. Afterwards, apple cider vinegar (70 ml) is poured into the mixture, and the mass is mixed again until it has a homogeneous consistency. The shredded pork is cooled, after which it is formed into flat cakes and stewed in a frying pan. Prepared intestines are stuffed with stewed meat, and finished homemade sausages are tied, fried on both sides and sent for tasting.

Cooking chorizo ​​sausage at home is a pleasure! Little time is spent on this, and the result exceeds all expectations.

Use in cooking

Chorizo ​​sausage can be used in cooking in a variety of ways. It can be used as an ingredient to create any dishes, as a separate snack, and this sausage can also be added to sandwiches, sandwiches and various hamburgers.

Today there are many ways to use this delicacy. In the following table you can find several delicious recipes with chorizo ​​sausage that each of you can implement in the kitchen.

Name	Ingredients
scallops with chorizo ​​sausage	Five scallops, two sweet peppers, one hundred grams of sausage, a clove of garlic, a small bunch of green onions.	To begin, the scallops are prepared and lightly fried on both sides. In another frying pan, peppers and garlic are simmered. Then scallops are added to the vegetable mixture, and everything is fried together for another five minutes. Before serving, the dish is decorated with chopped green onions.
vegetable salad with chorizo	Two hundred grams of dry-cured chorizo ​​sausage, a small onion, two tomatoes, one clove of garlic, vegetable oil and wine vinegar (10 ml each), several sprigs of parsley and basil, salt and pepper (to taste).	The sausages are cooked in a frying pan until golden brown, and the vegetables are cut into large pieces. Then the prepared ingredients are laid out in layers, seasoned with spices, oil and wine vinegar. In this case, chorizo ​​sausage can be replaced with any other dry-cured sausage.
bean soup with chorizo ​​sausage	A small stick of sausage, two onions, three leaves of fresh and five grams of dry oregano, two garlic cloves, one hundred grams of tomato paste, one bell and hot pepper each, olive oil (50 ml), canned white and red beans (100 grams each), tomato juice (200 ml), liter of broth.	First of all, cut the sausage, onion and garlic into cubes. The oil is heated in a saucepan, after which the chopped ingredients are fried in it for five minutes. Then tomato paste is added to the mixture and everything is mixed well. The components are stewed for three minutes and poured with broth and tomato juice. The dish is stirred, boils, covered with a lid and cooked over low heat for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, two types of pepper are chopped into cubes and added to the soup. When the added vegetable is boiled for five minutes, the dish is supplemented with beans, spices and herbs. Next, the soup is brought to a boil, removed from the heat, covered with a lid and infused for twenty minutes.

Also, pasta, goulash, stew, pizza and even muffins are prepared using chorizo ​​sausage. All dishes that include this product are very tasty, aromatic and unique.

Chorizo ​​sausage is a real meat delicacy that can be enjoyed endlessly!