In their book "The Greatest Sausage Recipes" Stanley and Adam Marianski give a recipe for a Mexican fresh sausage called Chorizo Aromatico. The recipe called for paprika, red chile pepper and cayenne. This struck me as odd since I've been in a number of carnicerias and they have a great number of chiles but none are labeled like that. I've modified the recipe to use Mexican dried chiles to my own taste. I think this chorizo can be easily modified to use chiles that are available and just ancho and arbol (for heat) would make a decent product. In many areas of the US they can be had for low prices. To prepare whole dried chiles for this recipe I cut the stem off with scissors then cut down to open the chile and pull out the seeds. I cut the chiles into one inch squares and soak the chiles in water using a heavy bowl to keep them submerged for about eight hours. I then blend them with some of the soaking liquid into a smooth paste with a blender.
Pork (80/20). 1700 g
Salt. 22.8 g
Held overnight then ground through an 8 mm plate.
Chili paste:
Guajillo. ( 5. ) 14.6 g
Ancho. ( 5. ) 25 g
Arbol. (2. ) 0.6 g
Pasilla. ( 2 ) 7.6 g
Soaking liquid 225 g
Black pepper. 2.9 g
Ground cumin. 6.1 g
Ground cloves. 0.5 g
Ground Allspice. 0.5 g
Ground cinnamon 2 g
Dried thyme. 1.5 g
Dried oregano. 3.0 g
Fresh garlic. 4 cloves finely minced
Apple cider vinegar. 1/3 cup
The vinegar will give the sausage a loose texture and add to the taste. The amount I used is what I like, adjust to taste. To use the amount in the Marianskis' recipe (1/2 cup / Kg), use part of the cider vinegar as chile soaking liquid or switch to dried ground chiles. I package the above in vacuum sealed bags and freeze (after taste test.
).Chiles I used
