Homemade Chorizo

Submitted by: Hawkeye

Where I live there is no nearby mexican grocer or other grocery store that stocks chorizo (Syracuse NY). But, in restaurants past I have loved ordering the starter "choriqueso"

It's a mix of a very meltable white cheese and chorizo sausage you put in tortillas. Having no access to chorizo, except for online purchases where it includes thymus and junk like that, I sought out a seemingly authentic (enough) recipe for making my own.

Homemade Chorizo

Ingredients

• 3/12 lb pork shoulder, cut into cubes and ground in a meat grinder (approx 1/2 of a pork shoulder at my grocery store, they should cut it in half for you, make sure to use the fatty side for this)
• 5 Ancho Chiles (dried)
• 3 Pasilla chiles (dried)
• 2 Chipotles (dried)
• 1 tsp coriander, ground
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 3 Tbsp paprika
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup vinegar

Preparation

• Remove Stems & seeds from peppers, toast in an ungreased pan over med heat.
• Once toasted (become fragrant, etc), take out of pan and allow to cool
• Break chiles into pieces and place into a blender, blend into a fine chili powder
• Add coriander, oregano, cloves, cumin, salt, paprika, garlic, and vinegar to the blender, blend to mix
• Add the chili powder to the ground meat and make sure it is very well mixed
• Cover with plastic wrap, place in fridge for 2 days. Every day it should be mixed up 2 times.
• Freeze sausage in 1/4 lb links, use plastic wrap to form the links (since you never cook it in the casing anyways, why bother?)

You could of course freeze it in much bigger sizes, but we find that for the two of us, 1/4 lb at a time is plenty.