When you hear the word chorizo, you probably think of that spicy, firm, red sausage you can buy from supermarkets – and you’d be right, that is chorizo. The thing is, though, that it’s only one type of chorizo.
In Spain alone there are hundreds of regional varieties of chorizo. They can be smoked or unsmoked, spicy or sweet and include herbs and other ingredients as well as the usual chopped pork and pork fat seasoned with garlic, smoked paprika and salt (in fact, the word chorizo probably derives from the Latin salsicia meaning salted). Spanish chorizo can be long or short and hard or soft. Chorizo de Pamplona, for instance, is a thicker sausage with more finely ground meat.
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Chasing chorizo
Even the word chorizo changes from region to region: in Basque it is txorizo; in Catalan, xoriço and in Galician chourizo. And it doesn’t stop there.
Portuguese chouriço includes pork, fat, paprika, garlic and salt, although wine and hot peppers are used too. In some varieties, white pepper, piri-piri, cumin and cinnamon are used. And in Mexico, chorizo can be made with beef, venison, chicken or turkey. In the Philippines, chorizo can even be made with tuna, which is just weird.
On the rewilded Knepp Estate south of Horsham in West Sussex, they make a delicately-flavoured chorizo from free-range longhorn cattle (and a little pork).
But to get back to Spain, chorizo is, of course, a staple ingredient of tapas dishes. It’s served fried and simmered in red wine as chorizo al vino tinto, or with cider as chorizo al sidra, you can have it in tortilla with bread, or by itself alongside Spanish cheese, olives nuts and pickles.
At El Pirata restaurant in Mayfair’s Down Street, customers have enjoyed various takes on his famous ingredient. It has been served as mentioned above, in red wine and cider, but also as part of the pinchos morunos con chorizo (marinated chicken skewers) and you can even have it with mussels in a superb mejillones con chorizo.
Whatever else chorizo is, it’s not just sausage.
