Homemade Sausage Making

For those of you who, like me, enjoy scrambled eggs with chorizo for breakfast but are appalled at the amount of fat in commercial products, here's a good Mexican-style chorizo. It's a fresh sausage. However, it's good smoked. (Make sure to add the optional cure if you smoke it.) Here's the recipe for a small batch (2 lbs.):

Chorizo (Mexican style)
2 lbs. pork (fat trimmings removed)
1/2 lb. pork trimmings
12 gm non-iodized salt
3.1 gm cure #1 (optional, mandatory if sausage is to be smoked)
0.75 gm pepper (black)
20 gm garlic (6 medium cloves - fresh) *(Edited by CW 2.22.12 by author's request)
24 gm chile- ancho (remove stems & seeds, grind)
13 gm chile-pasillo (remove stems & seeds, grind)
0.2 gm cloves (ground)
0.7 gm coriander (ground)
0.4 gm cumin (ground)
0.4 gm oregano
7.8 gm paprika (sweet)
100 ml vinegar

For the chiles, shop in the Hispanic section of your local food market. Some equivalents:
---(Use about 3, here.) 5 chiles anchos mulatos = 53 gm whole, 37 gm seeded
---(Use a large one, here.) 2 chiles passillas = 29 gm whole, 23 gm seeded

...Dissolve salt (and cure, if used) in vinegar before mixing, for better distribution.
...Season for a day or two in the refrigerator, then stuff. Good for three days, so freeze it and pull it out, a link at a time, as you need it. Great when crumbled and fried, then scrambled in eggs
...Do not smoke unless cure is added.
...Fat content: about 25%. Cure, if added, works out to 149 ppm nitrite.

!Buen provecho!

Just to clarify, the ancho and pasilla are found dried, they are not fresh or canned.

Dried is correct. That gives the sausage a nice, dark color and a mellow flavor.
Enjoy!

While we're at at, let's do some hazard prevention. (The following is ripped off from http://missvickie.com/howto/spices/pepp ... tscale.htm which you should refer to for additional information on pepper types and such.)

How to Stop the Heat

Its a good idea to use gloves or put plastic baggies over you hands to avoid getting the hot oils on you skin. Alternatively, if nothing else is available, you can try to protect your hands by coating them lightly with vegetable oil as a barrier. Never touch your eyes or mouth, or any part of your body when handling hot peppers.

Putting Out The Fire

On your skin: Water only spreads the fire so don't wash your hand until you neutralize the`heat. Capsaicin - the compound that gives peppers their heat isn't soluble in water, but chlorine or ammonia turns it into a salt, which IS soluble in water. In a little bowl add 1 part bleach to 5 parts water and just dip your hands quickly, but don't soak your hands in this solution or it may irritate your skin.

In your mouth: Many people recommend drinking tomato juice or eating a fresh lemon or lime, the theory being that the acid counteracts the alkalinity of the capsaicin.

Dairy products are a good antidote to overheating. Capsaicin dissolves easily in the fats found in dairy products. So when you put a dab of sour cream in your mouth along with (or after) a bite of hot stuff, you're adding pretty effective dilution. The capsaicin and dairy fats mix together, keeping some of the capsaicin molecules from finding the pain receptors on your tongue. Remember, though, it's the fat that provides the relief, so don't expect the same results from low-fat sour cream or nonfat yogurts. This antidote tones down many spicy cuisines, from the use of sour cream with Mexican food to the yogurt condiments eaten with Indian meals. In Thai cuisine, rich coconut milk serves much the same purpose,

And from ol' el Ducko , this advice: Wear rubber gloves when making sausage, and wash frequently. It's not only more sanitary, it guards against pepper problems.

Hey Duck! Great recipe. Very nice indeed. You wrote:

and wash frequently

I'll have you know that I wash every Saturday night whether I need it or not! Yup, down at the ol' horse trough!
Have you got a name in mind for your chorizo recipe? (for the index on Sunday night).

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Chuckwagon wrote: I was every Saturday night

......but I bet you wasn't the next morning! WooHoo! WooHoo! WooHoo!

But seriously, folks... How about
[USA] Chorizo (Mexican) (estilo "Pato")
...or not. Whatever you think. Maybe (estilo del Ducko).
Naah. That's less distinguished. (...or maybe even, extinguished.)

Ahhh, immortality! (I can taste it now.)(Gimme 'nother beer.)
(Mebbe it was immorality. Better gimme 'nother 'nother beer.)

How about...
Chorizo En El Estilo Del Pato Reclamo De Madera Por El Ducko

Chuckwagon wrote:How about...
Chorizo En El Estilo Del Pato Reclamo De Madera Por El Ducko

I dunno. Do you think it's long enough? :snicker:

Chorizo Mexicano, Receta del Pato (ahumado o no)

Hi Duck,

Thanks for posting. I have been looking for a good Chorizo recipe for a little while. The Latino market in my area makes fairly good Chorizo, but it is not consistantly good. Sometimes they go too heavy on the salt.
I made your recipe this weekend and I am eating a piece as I type this. It is as good as I expected it might be. I added a few more cloves of garlic over what you use. I let the sausage sit overnight in the fridge and noticed that it lost some vinegar.
Next time I make it I am going to add the spices and mix the meat until it gets real sticky, then I will add the vinegar. Maybe the sausage will hold the vinegar/moisture better this way.

Thanks for the nice comments. Yes, I have vinegar separation problems too. Maybe if we were to use a water binder such as non-fat dry milk or phosphates (which I think is what the commercial guys use), it wouldn't separate. I'll give it a try, next batch. (The Marianskis' book says up to 0.5% is permitted. http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-making/additives ) If you go first, let me know how it comes out.

Great idea on the garlic. Yum. I can almost taste it (and smell it ! ) from here.

Dear "Maestros de Salchichas," (that's "Sausage Masters" to you, son).

In a severe case of "recipe creep," the amount of garlic in my chorizo recipe has accidentally slipped downward. Fellow user "Dumoine" spotted the low amount, and suggested upping it. I now see that I made a scaling error which propagated over a couple of versions. How embarrassing!

...as reads "3 gm garlic (1 medium clove fresh) "
...should read "20 gm garlic (6 medium cloves fresh) "

I have asked our beloved moderator to edit the recipe to correct it, but beware!

Many thanks to Dumoine for spotting the error. ...and to Chuck E. Wagon, wherever you are, sincere thanks for all the hard work on this website.

el Ducko
(sometimes "instant recognition" takes a few weeks)

ssorllih wrote:Not worth the effort or the flour. Too bland.

...guess I shouldn't call this a "post mortem," but do you think it's because of the chicken, the spicing, the salt, or what? (There's a "When in doubt, boost the cayenne" rule around here somewhere.)

Looks like it should have been good, like any other sausage biscuit. (They oughta make sausage biscuits one of the basic food groups, right? ) Given your earlier comments on the chicken sausage not being good, I'll guess it's the chicken version, but you'll have to be the one to make that judgement when you do the pork version.

...sure hope I'm not inundated by complaints when we do it in "Project B."
CW, does the Code of the West say anything about sausage recipe insurance?

Great! Be sure to share with everyone, how it ends up.
Wonderful hobby, isn't it? (Yum.) Thanks.

Duck's Law: "You can never use too much garlic."
(except maybe in a wedding cake.)

For those of you who have tried the favorite new condiment of the oriental foodie set, that Vietnamese pepper sauce called Sriracha...

Yum! It's really good. (...as it had better be. The producers of the stuff have just about bought up every dang red jalapeño in North America.)

And whataya know, it peps up the ol' chorizo recipe, too! Just add 20 grams for every kilo of pork mince. That's a nice, conservative way to start.

You're probably good for a bit more, though. Remember Duck's law:
. . . . ."It should just barely bring a tear to the eye."

(Also: "Wash your hands before rubbing your [or anyone else's] body parts.")








Or else... YEOWWW!

It'll blow your black pajamas off!



Thanks to my daughter and son-in-law, who brought this little guy back from Thailand to me.

Hey Patito those are great selfies! But should not they be in the Post Your Photo Here-Let's Become Acquainted thread?