Chorizo Pork Sausage: Spain's Gift to the Food World
Cured Chorizo sausage is the original tapas sausage. It is also one of the informing ingredients of Spanish cooking. Slow cooked beans or garbanzo dishes would be unthinkable without it.
The Rioja based firm of Embutidos Palacios sends us an entirely traditional CHORIZO, both in mild and picante forms made in Spain from Danish raised pork. Pimentón (Spanish paprika), salt and garlic are the only other elements. Stuffed into a particularly sturdy, very thin casing, it is then air dried. Just allow it to come to room temperature so its flavor blossoms before eating.
The word “chorizo” is peculiar to Castillian Spanish and to Portuguese. Of unknown origin, datable only to 1576, it does not have a traceable genealogy. However, it's present form is very datable since it uses pimentón (capsicum pepper) which only began to be grown in Spain at the end of the 1600s. Mexican chorizo is a different style of sausage altogether and is not interchangeable for the Spanish.
If you have not tried Palacios Chorizo yet, you owe it to yourself to do so. Use it in steaming clams or mussels; flavor soups with it; add it to fried potatoes; serve it sliced with a like sized piece of bread for a very quick tapa. It is seductively addicting.
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