A fresh chorizo that’s great used in Albondigas – Spanish meatballs. It’s loosely based on a recipe from Jeffrey Weiss’s fantastic book Charcuteria, The Soul of Spain.
Ingredients:
666 gm Pork shoulder (after removing skin) (approx. 20% fat)
334 gm Pork belly meat (after removing skin) (approx. 50% fat)
30 gm White wine – preferably Spanish – in truth, I use what I have to hand.
30 gm Water
12 gm Garlic cloves
5 gm Smoked sweet paprika – I use Pimentón de la Vera dulce
5 gm Smoked hot paprika – I use Pimentón de la Vera picante
10 gm Murcian paprika
2 gm Oregano – dried
20 gm Salt
Note: I use Murcian paprika as my wife doesn’t like it too smoky. If you like the more traditional taste, omit the Murcian paprika and use Pimentón de la Vera instead.
The easy way:
Use 20% fat pork mince from the supermarket instead of pork shoulder and belly (1000 g), add the other ingredients, and mix really well.
Method:
Keep everything well chilled throughout processing.
Chop the garlic and then mix it with the salt and make a paste – either by working it with a strong-bladed knife, food processor, or in a pestle and mortar.
Ensure the meat is very cold by placing it in the freezer for 20 minutes or so.
Grind/mince the two meats with an #8 – #10 plate.
If you use a small grinder/mincer, put the meat back in the freezer for 20 minutes or so to cool it down.
Mix the meat and salt/garlic mix and grind/mince it all again.
Mix all the remaining ingredients well.
Add them to the meat and mix it really well.
The mixing can be done in a stand mixer if you don’t fancy really cold hands!
Note: If you are mixing this by hand, it will help if you grind/mince the meat the first time and add the salt and garlic the day before processing further.
For Beginners
Mixing the meat well helps a protein in the meat called myosin develop.
It is this protein that differentiates minced meat from sausage meat.
Mix it until it changes consistency and becomes sticky.
For some reason, this mix has not developed myosin as I would expect. It’s almost certainly due to the white wine inhibiting its production. With the amount of mixing that it’s had, it should be a sticky sausage mass – it’s not! I have reduced the amount of wine from the amount in my recipe to that in the recipe above and added water to dilute it. Hopefully, it’ll perform better now – it’s funny because I’ve made this recipe a few times before and had no problem.
