Chorizo: A tale of two sausages
June 13, 2012 
8 Comments
I have many pet peeves, both culinary and linguistic. (Possibly too many.) One that falls into both categories is the word “chorizo”.
Why is this a pet peeve? It’s because there are at least two types of sausage that go by the name “chorizo,” and they’re very different from each other. One, Spanish chorizo, is flavoured with smoked paprika, cured and dried. The other, Mexican chorizo, is seasoned primarily with ancho chilli and is a fresh sausage (i.e., you have to cook it before eating it). Too often, I’ve been faced with menus identifying chorizo as an element in a dish, with no hint as to which style is involved. And too often, a polite inquiry is met with a puzzled reply of, “How many types are there?”
No matter: both are delicious.
A recent craving for queso fundido led to me making a batch of Mexican chorizo. The recipe I used (different from the one linked to above) was from the only Rick Bayless book I own, Mexico One Plate at a Time, which also includes a recipe for the relevant chorizo. For comparison purposes, I also checked the Mexican chorizo recipe in my go-to sausage book, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie (which has recipes for both the Mexican and Spanish varieties).
What a difference in the recipes! Charcuterie calls for 16 grams of ancho chilli powder for five pounds of meat, while Bayless calls for 6 ounces (that’s about 170 grams, or more than 10 times as much) of whole anchos for only two pounds of meat. Even allowing for the weight of the stems and seeds, that’s a big difference.
I went with the Bayless recipe, partly out of a desire for some nebulous “authenticity” and partly because it was in the same book as the queso fundido recipe (not to mention the tortilla recipe…) The only material change I made was to skip the chilli-toasting step, because my anchos were too brittle to break into large, flat pieces.
The resulting sausage is blood-red, and with such a high proportion of chillis, it burns very easily. But cooked gently, it’s delicious, and made a great addition to the queso fundido. I’m looking forward to finding other ways to use it.
Ok Matthew, so when I order fresh chorizo from a butcher, it’s a Mexican-style sausage, not Spanish? This explains why when in Barcelona and I ordered chorizo as part of tapas, it did not come as a small plate of chunks of cooked/grilled sausage but as a plate of red cured sausage slices. Yet I when I ordered chorizo in a Spanish restaurant in Berlin, and it came as the former. I’m confused! Or perhaps the restaurants are…
Well, of course, it’s impossible to completely disentangle Mexico from Spain, given their historical colonial relationship. But yes, in general, if you’re ordering “fresh chorizo”, it’s a Mexican-style sausage, and the dry-cured sausage is the Spanish version. It sounds to me like the Spanish restaurant in Berlin was confused.
In Spain, if you order chorizo in a tapas bar, it’s almost always cured. Fresh chorizo is “chorizo para guisar”, it’s uncommon in tapas bars but you will find it in every single supermarket, anywhere in Spain.
I haven’t seen mexican chorizo for years, but then again, I no longer live in North America.
Good to know that fresh chorizo does exist in Spain! Is it also seasoned with pimentón?
Yes, fresh Spanish chorizo is also seasoned with pimentón.
To further complicate things, I would say that there exist several dozens varieties of chorizo in Spain, many regions have their own versions.
You have made me curious about the Mexican product. Don’t forget the Portuguese!