CHORIZO RECIPE BASICS
It’s often difficult to obtain decent Mexican sausage so we’ll just make up a batch of our own although it will be in bulk form and not in casings. This way you can control the amounts of fat and paprika/chili powder used, both often overdone in commercial varieties and if you want you can also throw in a little tripe as I like to. You can also use ground pork from the butcher or process by machine or hand. In the provincial kitchen you’d toast the chilies and grind the spices in a mortar but we’re going to use the preprocessed variety and we’ll just toast them up a bit to bring out the flavor. Pork here in Panama is quite lean so you might what to add some, olive oil or a bit of minced fresh pork or smoky bacon. If you’re not a purist you can also mix the pork with a little beef or any other protein and this sausage is usually removed from its casing to cook to don’t worry about your lack of casing.
Pork or beef or chicken or fish minced
Pork fat back no matter what type of protein you’re using
4 medium, dried, toasted and ground chilies or chili powder
½ teaspoon each: oregano, cumin, cilantro, coriander and cloves
Chicken powder to taste
Fold the above ingredients together
You can add a bit of pureed chipotle if you like it spicy as I do
