Salvadoran Chorizo

Chorizo from Spanish  or chouriço from Portuguese is a type of pork sausage. Most Hispanic countries have their own version of chorizo, a marvelous-tasting fermented sausage which is, to the Spanish, like salami is to the Italians. Many inhabitants of former Spanish colonies have tried to make similar sausages, using local ingredients and methods.

In Europe, chorizo is a fermented, cured, smoked sausage, which may be sliced and eaten without cooking, or added as an ingredient to add flavor to other dishes. Elsewhere, some sausages sold as chorizo may not be fermented and cured, and require cooking before eating. Spanish chorizo and Portuguese chouriço get their distinctive smokiness and deep red color from dried, smoked, red peppers.

Many of the New World (latin America)’s chorizos are attempts to if not duplicate, at least come close to the flavor of the original chorizo, a fermented sausage from several regions of Spain. Those original chorizo recipes are for fermented sausages, and require very special conditions of bacteria, temperature, and humidity for their production. Try duplicating one of them with anything different and you will obviously not produce a duplicate. So, for example, we find vinegar included in nearly all of the New World recipes, even though acid inhibits development of protein structure and makes the sausage contents fall apart, rather than adhere and hold together. There is a certain tang that fermented sausages have.

Depending on the variety, chorizo can be eaten sliced without further cooking, sometimes sliced in a sandwich, or grilled, fried, or baked alongside other foodstuffs, and is also an ingredient in several dishes where it accompanies beans.