Great Tasting Chorizo Sausage Recipes
Making the most of this fantastic Iberian Sausage
Chorizo comes from the Iberian Peninsular, it's great taste comes from a combination of the pork meat cured with smoked paprika or Pimenton as it is known in the region. When cooking Chorizo the flavor and color from the paprika is released infusing the other ingredients with a fantastic smokey taste and a rich red orange hue. In terms of pepper, spiciness or heat, Chorizo comes in two main varieties, spicy (picante) or sweet (dulce), although generally speaking recipes containing picante Chorizo are not as hot as chilli or curry dishes, they can be quite piquant with a lovely rich savoury flavor.
Chorizo is an ingredient in many Spanish and Portuguese dishes, such as Tapas and Paella.
In this article you will find one of my favorite chorizo sausage recipe dishes - Chorizo & Butter Bean Soup, I really hope you enjoy it, please let me know by leaving a comment. I then give you some other recommended dishes, with links to the recipes and the books they are from, I have personally have all the books mentioned and have cooked all the meals featured and many from them, I can wholeheartedly recommend them all.
Chorizo & Butter Bean Soup
A Simple, affordable yet absolutely delicious, meal.
Equipment:
- One large saucepan
- Hand blender
- Chopping Board
- Sharp Knife
- Measuring spoons
Ingredients:
- 2 small or 1 large onion
- 2 x 400g/1lb cans of Butter Beans (also known as Lima Beans)
- 250g / ½lb of Spicy Spanish Chorizo
- Olive Oil
- ½ Teaspoon Sea Salt
- ½ Freshly Ground Black Pepper
- Water
Method:
Chop finely the onions and the fry in oil until soft, olive oil can burn more easily than some other forms oils so keep an eye on them!
Meanwhile chop the Chorizo, how you do this is up to you, but I like to keep the skin on (the cooking softens it) and cut them into small circles approximately ¼ inch thick, but you could dice or just randomly chop up into chunks if you like.
Add the Chorizo to the pan with the onions and oil and fry for a few minutes, the lovely tasting juices from the Chorizo will mingle with the onion and everything will go red.
Take one can of Butter Beans and add the entire contents to a suitable container, and using a hand blender blend the beans and water, you should now have a creamy thick Butter Bean Puree.
Add the blended Butter Beans, along with the other can (drained) to the pan and stir to combine.
Taste the soup to see if it needs any additional seasoning, I find a half a teaspoon of sea salt and about the same of freshly ground black pepper is about right, but it will depend on the Chorizo so it's important to check.
Cook for around ten minutes, you can adjust the thickness by adding water or vegetable stock, but I like it nice and thick!
On it's own this is a low GI recipe, but because of the beans it is not low in carbs. It's a favorite of mine on a cold day after a long walk or cycle ride when I'll eat it with a chunky of freshly made soda bread.
The picture below was taken by me, when I cooked it yesterday it gave me the inspiration for the article!
See me cooking chorizo and butter bean soup!
Where to buy the key ingredients for this recipe
Equipment mentioned in this recipe...
Cuisinart CSB-76 SmartStick 200-Watt Immersion Hand Blender
Which Beans?
I know them as butter beans!
As with many ingredients, things are known by different names depending on where you are in the world. To help with this I have included a picture of the kind of bean you are looking for, these are also known as Lima beans, you are looking for the large, flat and yellow/white variety, but if you try a different bean and it works please let me know below!
River Cottage Pheasant With Butter Beans and Chorizo
(another great combo!)
This recipe comes from the River Cottage - it's a great on a winter's day and will taste even better the day after you cook it once all the flavours have married together. If using dry butter beans give them a really long soak, preferably 24-hours before cooking to ensure that they are soft and delicious.
The full recipe can be found here on the Guardian Newspaper Website. It is also in the utterly brilliant "River Cottage Everyday" book:
Nigel Slater's Chorizo with Rice
from the Kitchen Diaries vol 1.
Nigel Slater is a TV cook and writer, not a chef, he loves food and loves to write about it. His most popular work is a book simply called the Kitchen Diaries, in it he records most of the meals he eats over the course of a year, some are detailed recipes, others like this one are really just a paragraph hinting at the details with no quantities or much of a method given, the reader is left work out the very simple approach and adapt as they see fit.
The ingredients in this recipe are very simple and straightforward; celery, spring onions, parsley, chorizo, rice and vegetable bouillon.
My interpretation of Nigel's recipe:
Firstly gently cook the chopped celery and spring onions in olive oil, then add fat chunks of chopped chorizo. After five minutes stir in the rice and the vegetable bouillon.
Simmer, stir occasionally, then once the the juices have been absorbed by the rice (and the rice is soft and cooked), serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Fantastic!
I can't recommend this book highly enough, if I'm out of ideas I always refer to it for inspiration and it never lets me down.
Nigella's Spanish Chicken with Chorizo & Potatoes
"Every bit as good as it looked"
This is just amazing with a bottle of Spanish Red Wine such as a good Rioja, it is also very simple to cook ahead of a dinner party with friends as it all goes into one tray and into the oven and only requires minimal attention during the hour it spends in the oven.
The ingredients are pretty much in the title, however, the addition of oregano and grated orange zest give the whole thing a fantastic Mediterranean flavor.
See Nigella's website for the full recipe, which is also featured in her book Kitchen:
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