Homemade Chorizo

When looking at what we are prepared to make in our own kitchens, there are some barriers which people find really hard to break. Few of us for example make our own cheese or yoghurt. Making your own bread or pastry is probably the greatest extent to which many keen cooks are prepared to break this invisible barrier. But why is this? One such area of products that we seem to find it hard to persuade ourselves to get involved with is cured meats. There are pitfalls such as a perceived risk of spoiling, worries about temperature and moisture and more than anything else, the fact that you have to wait so long to see if you’ve been successful or not. A 24 month Parma ham has to be the ultimate “slow food” in this respect. As a lover of all thinks salty and made of pork I’ve been very happy to give it a go. Getting involved in curing isn’t so much a one-off recipe to write about but an on-going adventure so I’ll be writing about some of these curing adventures over the next few weeks and months and possibly longer!

Today I’m going to be writing about one of the greatest successes which was my homemade chorizo. A chorizo isn’t really different from any other salami, it’s just defined by its spices, particularly Pimenton. When I set out to make a salami of some sort I hadn’t really decided upon chorizo but I’d picked up some lovely Pimenton de la Vera from a nice little delicatessen in Olney. One of the wonderful things about salami making is that in one sense you are very constrained by exact proportions of ingredients. But when it comes to flavours added, you have a complete free reign to experiment. Any salami works out pretty much as follows:

·         Approx 80% lean pork (ideally shoulder)

·         Approx 20% pork fat (back or belly)

·         2.6% salt – for hygiene reasons I use a proper curing salt with added nitrates and nitrites

·         0.6% starter culture bacteria – not essential but adds another line of defence against bugs

On top of this you add whatever you want to personalise your home cured sausage. Further personalisation comes in the coarseness of the meat inside.

For my Chorizo I hand chopped the lean pork very fine. This was tedious but even with a coarse mincer attachment I think it’s hard to get the right consistency for “chunky” salami. The fat was however minced to allow for a more even distribution. While we’d all happily find big meaty chunks in a slice of salami, a slice of mostly fat isn’t that appetizing. When mincing fat it’s much better to partially freeze it beforehand. This way the blade will slice through it correctly and it’s much easier to do and to handle. I only have a little £20 hand operated plastic mincer and it can be arduous at times.

The meat and fat need to be well mixed together along with the salt and starter culture, it pays to go over the top here. Some people recommend kneading the mince like a dough but I think with smaller quantities this can all be done in the bowl.

I do a full mix of the basic meat and salt combination before adding any flavourings at all. This is probably not necessary but it does give peace of mind that it’s all thoroughly mixed through.

Now at this point you get to the fun and creative part of the process. It’s time to mix up your flavours and personalise your salami to make it far better than anything you’d ever buy in the shops. For this particular creation I used the following flavourings into 1Kg of meat:

·         Two tsp of pimento

·         One tsp fennel seeds

·         One glass of rioja

·         One very small clove of garlic, crushed

·         One tsp whole black peppercorns

You have to be careful with flavouring cured meats. Remember, this is not being cooked. All of these flavours will be effectively eaten raw. Think about how much garlic you’d put into a salad compared to a pasta sauce. Be subtle. I reckon you need to use around a half or less of the quantity that you’d use normally, especially when it comes to garlic.

I can’t stress how important it is to stay clean and hygienic throughout this process. I must have washed hands and cleaned surfaces at least twenty times while making this. This is never more important that when carrying out the final stage of stuffing the sausage.

For this I used beef middles. These come vacuum packed and salted and you need to soak them in plenty of fresh water before use for at least a couple of hours. They create a nice thick sausage and the skins are strong so they will allow you to make a good long salami.

The stuffing process is quite fun. I actually managed to get a whole kilogram into one salami. The main thing to remember is to avoid any air pockets and keep a good consistency throughout. I use special culinary string to tie up both ends. Again, you can’t be too cautious with hygiene.

The drying process starts with one day in a warm damp place. This sounds counterintuitive but what this does is to get the starter bacteria in their going and multiplying to protect the meat from spoiling. At this stage the salami looks relatively pale and unappetizing. Here's the unfinished article, with "Ham" from Toy Story looking on....

It’s then transferred to a cool place for drying. I use a section of attic that’s always about the same temperature as outside. This will only work in the winter but that’s when salami making traditionally took place. It’s important not to be too dry, 75% relative humidity is ideal, if it’s too dry the salamis will dry too quickly, hardening on the outside but not curing properly inside. In the case of my curing area, it’s very close to a cold water tank so the humidity remains around this ideal figure.

Knowing when it’s ready isn’t easy. The best way is to keep a note of the weight of the salami. Once it has lost about a third of its weight it should be fine. In my case this took a little less than two months.

The result? Really good and quite surprising.  It’s much more moist and soft than shop bought salami with more meaty flavours. The spices came through nicely although I think I’d need to at least double the pimento content to make it just like a real Spanish chorizo. The peppercorns and fennels seeds had softened just enough to give a nice little explosion when biting into them. In future I think I’ll try and make more at once. There’s a lot of setting up and indeed washing up involved so it would pay to have a real mammoth session.

Perhaps the most reassuring thing is that there have been been no illnesses, tummy bugs or ill effects of any kind among those who have sampled it and feedback has been good. I can’t recommend making your own enough and it really isn’t hard. Unless you have a dedicated fridge for curing you may wish to wait until next winter though. These guys make an excellent starter kit and cheap mincer. The starter kit contains enough for about 80Kg of salami so it should keep you going for a while and offers great value for money.

Next time its home cured Guanciale, Italian Pig Cheek Bacon…