So you want a couple of different chorizo recipes, do you? (Well, I thought you`d never ask.)
Let`s break them down into a "boiler plate" approach, something that I started doing with my spreadsheet work but didn`t pursue until Jason Story (of his and wife Carolina`s "Three Little Pigs" shop in Washington, DC) showed me something that they learned at the CIA.
(As the old joke goes, "Now, I`ll have to kill you.") (No! ...wrong CIA. It`s the Culinary Institute of America, of which Jason and Carolina are graduates.)
Let`s break the recipe into blocks. CIA suggested "Meat" and "Other." Let`s go a bit finer, though:
● Meat
● Salt & Cure
● Sugars
● Additives
● Liquids
● Herbs and Spices, which we will break down further into:
● -- Flavors and colorants
● -- Traditional Herbs and Spices
● -- Garlic
I go deeper in the "Additives" section, but since we don`t have any for this recipe set except the bacteria, let`s not. For those who can`t stand it, though, my categories are
● yeast or bacteria
● water binder
● extender & general binder
● curing accelerator
● flavor enhancer
● preservative
For this recipe, I use a basis of one kilogram of meat. This makes it easy to write a general recipe, then scale it according to whatever quantities you use. The amount of product comes out to whatever all the ingredients add up to, so if you want, say, exactly one kilo of product, write down the recipe, see what it all adds up to, then scale everything by one over that weight. Feel free to add an "other" category to any or all sections, when you go into detail.
And for heaven`s sake, use weights, not volumes. Yes, I realize that many recipes are given in teaspoons and tablespoons, or in Imperial or other weight units. Take the time to weigh a tablespoon or whatever, then convert to grams. Convert the pounds and whatnot to grams too. It`s vastly simpler, that way, and much more consistent.
Here`s a basic recipe:
==Meat:
----------1 kg pork butt
==Salt & Cure:
----------xx gm cure #1
----------xx gm salt
==Sugars
----------xx gm dextrose (glucose)
==Additives
----------Xxx gm bacteria
==Liquids
----------Xxx gm water
----------Xxx gm vinegar
==Herbs and Spices, which we will break down further into:
++++Flavors and colorants
----------Xxx gm ancho and/or pasilla chiles
----------Xxx gm sweet paprika or pimentón
----------Xxx gm cloves
----------Xxx gm allspice
++++Traditional Herbs and Spices
----------Xxx gm coriander seed
----------Xxx gm cumin
----------Xxx gm oregano
----------Xxx gm black pepper
++++Garlic
----------Xxx gm garlic
Got that? Okay, then. Let`s generate a couple of recipes. We`ll do a basic recipe, the Melissa Guerra fresh chorizo recipe mentioned earlier. We`ll do my favorite (at the moment) recipe, then mention how to add popular Vietnamese condiment Sriracha to it. We`ll then change the so-called favorite recipe from fresh to smoked/semi-dried/cooked form by adding cure and adjusting the salt. (
Just to be irritating, I`ll run the nitrite up to 200 ppm.) Then we`ll show the same recipe as a fermented/smoked/semi-dried recipe.
Ready? Here are all four, side-by-side, so you can compare them.
Recipe:............................................... Basic...Favorite...Smoked...Fermented
==Meat:
----------pork butt (kg).......................................1.......1.........1....1
==Salt & Cure:
----------cure #1 (gm).........................................0.......0.........3.8..3.8
----------salt (gm)...............................................6.6....23.5...19.9.19.9
Cure adds salt! 1 gram cure = (1-0.0625)=0.9375 gm salt
==Sugars
----------dextrose (glucose) (gm)......................0........0......0....9.0
==Additives
----------bacteria (gm).........................................0........0......0....0.24
==Liquids
----------water (gm)..............................................0.......0.......0....125
----------vinegar (gm).......................................105......88...88....0
==Herbs and Spices, which we will break down further into:
++++Flavors and colorants
----------ancho and/or pasilla chiles (gm)......10.6......34...34...34
----------sweet paprika or pimento (gm).........0...........11...11...11
----------cloves (gm).............................................0......0.2...0.2.......0.2
----------Sriracha (gm)..........................................0....0 (11 optional).....0.....0
++++Traditional Herbs and Spices
----------coriander seed (gm)............................0......0.6...0.6....0.6
----------cumin (gm).....................................1.3...0.4...0.4...0.4
----------oregano (gm)...................................0............0.4......0.4....0.4
----------black pepper (gm).........................7.5.........0.7......0.7....0.7
++++Garlic
----------garlic (gm)......................................9.25........7.6......7.6....7.6
It`s simple, really. To go from fresh to smoked, add in the cure #1 and back down the salt. To go onward to the fermented/smoked, also switch out vinegar for water, then also add sugar and bacteria. Obviously, there are procedural differences (covered in CW`s write-up), but the recipes differ little.
And there you have `em. Get that dextrose and LHP on order, and you`ll be cookin` in no time!