Homemade Spanish Chorizo (Dry Cured Smoked Paprika Spicy Sausage with Natural Pig Intestine Casing)

Homemade Spanish Chorizo with Natural Pig Intestine Casing

Homemade Spanish Chorizo or Dried Spanish Spicy Smoked Paprika Pork Sausage Recipe. Spanish chorizo sausage referring to many different types of dried and cured pork sausages originally in Spain. Traditionally, Spanish chorizo is encased in natural pig intestines and then stuffed with mixture of minced fatty pork spiced with  smoked paprika and red cayenne chili pepper powder. Premium quality chorizo sausage got it’s distinct umami and smokey aromas, just like a good old ham. This chorizo sausage is one the amateur homemade charcuteries project featured on my blog, once i made my first Homemade Lap Cheung (Air Dry Cured Chinese Sausage) Recipe from Scratch, i even wanted to explored curing sausage method even more.

Homemade Spicy Spanish Chorizo

Homemade Spanish Chorizo with Smoked Paprika & Cayenne Pepper Chili Powder

Homemade Spanish chorizo isn’t that hard to made if you got the passion, i mean it’s not impossible to made at amateur kitchen but sure it need some patients and precision steps to made it edible. A litttle bit of passion can create a far better delicious chorizo than any professional deli store product ever sold. Chorizo preparation is time consuming because chorizo it’s fermentated, air dry cured and sometimes smoked (or not) before it’s ready to eat, but it’s also can be eaten as a cooked fresh sausage. Properly dried cured Spanish chorizo is  save to eaten raw as thinly sliced appetizer on charuteries platter alongside Homemade Beef Bresaola, Homemade Venison Deer Bresaola Di Cervo, Homemade Duck Prosciutto, Homemade Salmon Gravlax, Homemade Tea Smoked Salmon, Homemade Smoked Duck Breast, Homemade Smoked Beef and another cold cuts, pickles and cheese.

Pretty Huge Spanish Chorizo Sausage

Spanish Chorizo, Worth All the Effort and Patients

I mention before that making homemade Spanish chorizo need a precision; simply because improperly curing process can lead to food bourne poisoning called Botulism and causing death, no kidding!!!. Before you considering to made your homemade Spanish chorizo sausage or any other air dry cured meat, you should know about the savety about curing  first. You had to measured the proper ratio of the ingredients, especially the amount of the nitrate preservatives which is the only known additive that effective to prevent the Clostridium botulinum growing.

Dividing Saltpetre for My Chorizo Made Me Look a Like a Crack Addict, LOL

The recommendation maximum ammout of Saltpetre (Potassium Nitrate) for dry curing sausage is 500 ppm (part per million) or 500 mg per kg sausage stuffing mixture. The total chorizo stuffing weight (meat plus fat) is about 1.4 kg (1400 grams). The salt ammount for dry cured Spanish chorizo sausage is about 3 % of the weight, you gotta take a close attention on it. I’m using 1000 grams of pork loin meat and 400 grams of pork back fat for this recipe, 3% salt means  42 grams and the amout of salpetre is about 700 mg. I also added the same ammount of palm sugar with the salt (42 grams). Here’s the fun part, my digital weight scale can only measure 1 gram (1000mg), eversince i need only 700 mg of saltpetre, so i need to put the 1 gram of saltpetre in a piece of paper and divided it into three  equal part with my atm card  then using two-third of the the devided saltpetre. It made me thinking of myself “heck what i’m doing, my mom gonna be going crazy and beat the hell of my head because i seems like a crack addict doing their things ” lol

Hoemade Spanish Chorizo with my Grandma’s Hand

Maybe you heard that nitrate are toxic, infact nitrosamines did but the nitrate all blamed for that. Nitrosamine formed when nitrate transform into nitrite then react with amino acids or very high heat. Nitrosamines are known to be powerful DNA damaging chemicals and resulting cell mutation and cancer. But don’t really bother about it, infact a single portion of spinach or celery contain more nitrosamines than you can imagine. So don’t be affraid to use salpetre once you follow the recomendation ammount consentration in your homemade Spanish chorizo sausage because you don’t want to risk your life.

Sliced Homemade Spanish Chorizo

Sliced Fatty Spanish Chorizo

How to make sausage without sausage maker is another question, yes i did it several times actually; just check out my step by step praparation of Homemade Braised Bratwurst Sausage Recipe and Homemade Kidu-Kidu Grilled Pig Intestine Sausage Recipe. Eversince i didn’t really want to investing pretty much $$$ for it, i guess i have to do is manually. Using my chopper or food processor is not a good option, because it’s too powerfull and can easily over-grind the sausage stuffing, beside the heat possibly melt the back fat even i freeze it out priorly. So then i using my old school meat mincer knive and properly clean wood cutting board to diced the pork meat and a regular knive to diced the back fat. I’m using the natural pig intestine for encasing my homemade chorizo, but you can also use any edible artificial casings, such as collagen and cellulose, but i really want the original version with natural pig intestine casing. Is it possible to making a dry cured Spanish chorizo sausage using natural pig intestine casing ? luckily the answer is YES. The pig small intestine is needed to be cured before the sausage hung to dry cured. The pig intestine cleaned inside out, you can read about How To Clean and Preparing Pig Intestine, then  salted to enhanced the self life. Simply ask your butcher for pig small intestine, he or she probably give it for free and cleaned it for you. If you wanna take a pride of making authentic Spanish chorizo from scratch for real by cleaning pig intestine for making homemade sausage by yourself, you’re more then welcome in my kitchen

This is How I Describe Spicy Spanish Chorizo

The Raw Spicy Spanish Chorizo Aromas is Already Amazing!!!

Making my own chorizo sausage  in my very humble amateur kitchen is one of my obsession. Eversince i start making charcuterie or dry aging meat, i was curious about homemade air dry curing sausage. Store brought chorizo sausage  may contain tons of preservatives, color dying agent, and msg (monosodium glutamat) or other flavour enhanced agents. I didn’t added any msg on my homemade chorizo, instead i’m using palm sugar to enhance umami balance flavour with the salt, simply magic as what happen to salted caramel. Spanish chorizo is made from coarsely chopped pork and pork fat, seasoned with smoked pimentón (paprika), cayenne chili pepper powder and salt. It is generally classed as either picante (spicy) or dulce (sweet), depending upon the type of smoked paprika- chili peppere used. In using smoked paprika powder, dried chili powder and also cayenne pepper flakes for a kicking up a little bit.

DIY Spanish Chorizo with Plastic Funnel

DIY Spanish chorizo sausage without sausage maker made me using plasting funnel to stuffed the chorizo sausage stuffing into the pork intestine. Clean hand fingers or even chopstick is much more effective and fungtional for plug the sausage stuffing, just made sure you’re wearing a sterile gloves and sterilized chopstick otherwise it’s gonna be a mess. The end of the the pig intestine tie out after you finished stuffing to let the air released, slightly different with commonly people did because my plasting funnel tube didn’t long enought to be slipped with the intestine. After i stuffed my homemade chorizo sausage stuffing into the pork intestine, the stuffing a little bit slippery on the instenstine because so many air bubble on it. The stuffing can be plugged better with your hand too, just squeese out the stuffing with the intestine tube to the end, then divide the sausage link by twisting and then tiding  it to made individual homemade fresh chorizo sausage with it’s autentix U loop or horse shoes shaped.

Fresh Spanish Chorizo Sausage, Tide Up and Pricked Already, Ready for Hung Air Dry Curing!!!

The air bubbles then removed by pricking the fresh Spanish chorizo with sterilized metal pin. Remember that this process also enhanced the sausage drying process too. Pricking the fresh pig intestine sausage also iniciate free oxigen entering the chorizo sausage stuffing and prevent Clostridium botulinum to grow.The fresh pig intestine Spanish chorizo sausage hung to dry in a cold, good-ventilated and dark place, then left until dry and loosen 30 percent of it’s original weight. Make sure you notes the weight of the fresh sausage before you hung it and calculate the 30 percent loss from the original weight.  In my case, the fresh chorizo sausage weight is 1500 grams and the 30% loss is 450 grams, which means my Spanish chorizo sausage is ready to be eaten when it’s weighted 1o50 grams.  Unfortunately, my homemade Spanish chorizo sausage a little bit forgotten in the fridge and the drying  goes a little bit too far until the  weight reach 990 grams in 60 days (12 November-12 December 2014)

Exposing Chorizo wt tith Fan Help Drying it Before Hung Dry in the Refrigerator

My Spanish Chorizo Hung Up inThe Fridge (Air Dry Curing Process Using Refrigerator)

The air dry curing can be done in the room temperature in a subtropical or even better in a cold climates country. If you living in  a tropical country like indonesia, i guess it’s possible to left the fresh sausage hung to dry curing in room temperature because the temperature and the humidity is too high. Hence i use my refrigerator for dry curing Spanish chorizo, just made sure you cleaned out your fridge priorly. Simply left it hung undisturbed in the fridge door in the ideal fridge temperature (about 1– 4°C or 33 – 39°F) and the fridge humidity in “dry mode”. Do not open the fridge door too often since the temperature will fluctuated and made the dry cured chorizo sausage taste funny.

My Grandma’s Hand as a Model for Cutting My Spanish Chorizo

Homemade Spanish Chorizo, My Grandma’s Hand made it Look More Fancy!

This is my homemade Spanish chorizo sausage look a like after air dry cured in the fridge after 60 days. The Spanish chorizo looked great dark red colour with chunky bits of fat, meat and chili flakes showing in the surface. Nice umami with distict smokey paprika and hot chili smells comes out of it and the taste just perfect for my licking; fatty, smokey, savoury and sweet, totally better than the store brought!!!. The lean pork loin meat has shrunk a lot, but i guess the fat didn’t shrink much. Because i didn’t use any artificial filler, the weight losen out greatly. To keep the homemade lap cheong in fridge or freezer. If you want to keep them for longer than 2 – 3 weeks, best in freezer. I don’t really know if it will go mouldy or turn racid if you leave it covered or wrapped in the fridge for too long, but i guaranteed that i won’t be last than longer before ended out in my tummy. The Spanish chorizo still hanging out in my fridge well time by time, but it will be toughened and firmer as well without changing the taste.

Fatty Spanish Chorizo (Unsmoked)

Lean Spanish Chorizo (Smoked)

My homemade Spanish chorizo  consist 40% fat because i like a fatty and chunky chorizo sausage and i really adore the rendered fat once the chorizo sausage cooked.  The meat and fat ratio in commercially chorizo  is about 80% meat to 20% fat. The spice and flavour enhancement is another optional too. Eversince , i’m using . The best fat for dry curing is solid back fat because the soft fat like in the soft tissues is really easily rancid and turn into off smells and flavour. You may see the difference, the marbled Spanish chorizo contain 40% fat and the chorizo underneath contain less fat according to my sister’s request. She also insist to put more smoked paprika instead of chili powder so then the sausage looks more deep red color.

Unsmoked Fatty Spanish Chorizo Vs Smoked Lean Spanish Chorizo

Lean Smoked Spanish Chorizo VS Fatty Unsmoked Spanish Chorizo

The side by side difference of smoked lean Spanish chorizo vs the fatty unsmoked chorizo. The smoked  chorizo shrink much more than the unsmoked fatty chorizo, maybe because the moisture is within the meat instead the fat.  Eversince i add smoked salt and smoked paprika on my Spanish chorizo, so the smokey flavour is just perfect on my  licking on my fatty unsmoked Spanish chorizo. In contrast, the smoked lean chorizo smokey flavour is a little bit overpowering for me, but my sister like it even more, The lean Spanish chorizo is more suitable eaten raw in room temperature instead the fatty ones.

Homemade Spanish Chorizo Sausage

Ready To Cook Spanish Chorizo Sausage!

This is the most fun part, how to eat or cook Spanish Chorizo. Spanish chorizo can be eaten sliced in a sandwich, grilled, fried, or simmered in liquid. Dried Spanish chorizo sausage is usually added to enhanced the umami flavour into a dish. Chorizo sausage can be used for soup, stir fried and almost all rice dishes. Chorizo sausage is so versatile, i used it in many recipes; chorizo as topping for Broccoli Crust Pizza Recipe, stuffing for my Nasi Bakar (Grilled Banana Leaf Wrapped Spiced Rice), Peanut Crusted Roasted and Stuffed Whole Beef Tenderloin,Steamed Glutinous/ Sticky Rice Roll and Claypot of Chicken, Tofu, Sea Cucumber and Mushrooms RecipeChorizo sausage can be used to replaced any chinese sausage recipe; stir fried until charred and then added to Chinese style nasi goreng/fried rice and Lo Mai Gaior Steamed Sticky Rice with chicken, Abalone, Salted Egg Yolk and Mushrooms Stuffing in Lotus Leaves Wrap(/nuòmǐ jī), trust me that addition of chorizo sausage made simple fried noodle or vermicelli into the next level of deliciousness.

Recipe Homemade Spanish Chorizo Sausage

Recipe Homemade Spanish Chorizo Sausage (Pig Intestine Spicy Smoked Paprika Pork Sausage) :

Ingredients:

• 1 kg pork loin
• 400 grams pork back fat
• 2-3  pig intestine, cleaned (2-3 m sausage casing)
• 1 cup salt for cleaning  the pig intestine
• 42 grams salt (i’m using 21 grams sea salt & 21 grams smoked salt)
  
• 42 grams palm sugar
• 700 milligrams saltpetre (0,7 grams)
• 20 grams smoked paprika powder
• 10 grams fine red chili flakes
• 10 grams cayenne pepper powder
• 10 grams Homemade Garam Marsala Powder
• 10 grams garlic powder
• 4 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons red wine

How to Make Homemade Spanish Chorizo Sausage :

• Measure the weight of each Spanish chorizo ingredients properly
• Clean out and sterilize all of the utensils
• Mix and rub the salt to the pig intestine, let is marinated about 24 hours in the fridge, washed it properly under running water and drain in properly, set aside
• Meanwhile, dice the pork loin meat and fat with a knife into half centimetres cubes.
• Combine all the Spanish chorizo seasoning in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the meat and fat and mix well and let it marinated overnight in the fridge.
• Stuffed the Spanish chorizo sausage stuffing into the pig intestine using the plastic funnel with some help of chopsticks or finger.
• Tie off one end of Spanish chorizo sausage casing and then plugged out the stuffing to the tie
• Measure the 30 cm links and then fold the chorizo into it’s authentic U loop horse shoes shape.
  
• Prick the links and the chorizo sausage all over with a sterilized metal pin to allow the  air bubbles to escape from the sausage.
• Hang the Spanish chorizo sausage to dry curing in a well ventilated place until dehyrated and losen it’s 30 percent of it’s original weight.

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