Charcutepalooza - Dry Spanish Chorizo Sausage

Chorizo is Spanish spicy sausage that reminds me a lot of Hungarian Csabai sausage. At least my version of chorizo does because I put in so much sweet and hot paprika plus chili powder, something like double that any true recipe calls for. I have made this version three times before but this one is the best. It is just too bad that I didn’t take any notes as to what spices and how much I put in. Only part that I followed religiously was the salting and curing process, these are un-changeable for safety reasons. Also, this was last time I used my Kitchen Aid grinding attachment (modified to fit my Blakeslee 8 quart stand-up mixer) to stuff the casings. In the future I will use it only for grinding and mixing the meat but stuffing will be done by my brand new 5 Lb. vertical stainless steel stuffer. Today I made 5 Lb. of veal Frankfurters so I will post the picture of my new toy on that post in few days.

Meat was ground after 2 days of curing at 5°C.

After just 10 days the sausages lost 40% of moisture.

Charcuterie is an art and real fun! You can use your creativity but only to a point.

Charcutelapooza

Yes, I have joined the crowd of bloggers participating in Charcutelapooza, challenge program devised by blogger “Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen”, a blog where meat rules supreme.

Last week I ordered  “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing” by Michael Ruhlman from Amazon.ca. Next day the book was in so I dove right in. I have been making and smoking my own sausages for few years now so it is nothing new for me but I wanted to expand my repertoire. One recipe that caught my eye was Duck Prosciutto. Speaking of diving right in, two duck breasts are in the refrigerator being cured right now and I will update in 8 days how it will turn out. It takes 1–2 days for salting and 7 days for drying/curing, so obviously, this isn’t something that you decide in the morning what you will eat in the afternoon, after all.

While searching Internet for additional duck prosciutto recipes I came across Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen web site with her Charcutelapooza, Let’s make meat. This is carnivore’s, like me, dream! Even though all the challenges are over by now I will run all of them anyway and will post results. Great program for our long winter months.

I have added link to this great challenge on sidebar of my blog. Explore!

My very first batch of Chorizo sausages. They were great!!!