I figured I'd start off the proper food posts with a primer on one of my current favorite meats -- one I'll be eating tonight if my wife doesn't get to the leftovers first.
Chorizo, a paprika-spiced sausage, appears to be following the same path chipotle peppers did a few years back, from obscurity to trendiness to the American mainstream. I'll be very happy if this represents a trend of Latinization of our cuisine.
There are several kinds of chorizo, and getting the wrong one will seriously alter the dish you're using it in.
Spanish chorizo is a dry sausage akin to salami or pepperoni. It's been the mildest of the different kinds I've found and is one of my favorite snack foods. It goes incredibly well with dried apples, although I haven't found really good dried apples since Sunshine closed. Price Chopper usually carries this in the fancy salami bin by the cheese section, but hasn't had any for the last two weeks, which has annoyed me.
Mexican chorizo is a raw sausage. I'd compare it to hot Italian sausage, and its spice level ranges from mild to life-threatening. It's a standard at the taco stands we eat at when visiting my wife's family out west, but in recent years it seems like every pork vendor at every Vermont farmer's market has been selling it. J&S Davis, at the Rutland farmers' market, sells a relatively mild version that I've been eating a lot of lately.
Crumbled up and quickly fried, you can keep it around for a few days as a taco or burrito filling for quick mid-week meals. The drippings from it are great for cooking black beans in.
Portuguese chorizo, when I have encountered it, is like an absurdly hot kielbasa. Price Chopper usually carries a Gaspar brand version of it. It's traditionally used to flavor soups made with tough, winter greens. It serves well in that role, but needs to be handled with caution unless you're a serious spice-head.
My most recent chorizo experiment involved corn and potatoes. It worked well and I'm expecting to finish off the last of the leftovers tonight:
- 1 pound each Mexican-style chorizo, potatoes and frozen corn (I plan to try again with fresh corn in the summer)
- 5 large shallots
- Butter
- Madiera
- Water
- Salt and pepper
Slice the chorizo into rounds. In a medium pot, brown the chorizo in the butter, in batches if necessary. As it browns, roughly chop the shallots and peel and cut the potatoes into small cubes. Remove the chorizo and sweat the onions in the remaining fat, deglazing with the Madiera.
Add the corn and season with the salt and pepper. Once the corn softens, give it a few whirls from a hand blender to break up some of the corn. You want it to start to look like a paste, but there should still be plenty of whole kernels.
Thin out with some water and return the chorizo to the pot along with the potatoes. Simmer 10-20 minutes, checking potatoes until done. Add more water if it thickens up too much.
The resulting shmoo had a great spicy-sweet quality. You could make it richer by using stock or wine instead of water. Grating Monterey jack over the leftovers before heating them up is entirely optional.
And if it gets rather thick, using flour tortillas to scoop up bites is highly recommended.
Posted by: Jamie Dritschilo | 12/06/2011 at 10:27 PM