To truly enjoy your chorizo, a little care is required, but trust us, it’s worth it!

Take your chorizo extra from the fridge and remove from the bag. 

Cured chorizo is best sliced when the chorizo is cold with a sharp, thin-bladed knife. This allows you to cut the chorizo thinly and ideally cut it on the bias (angle) rather than just thin discs. Cutting this way gives a larger slice (greater surface area) and thus more flavour! As an example you can probably get about 30 slices from one chorizo sausage.

Then allow them to “come up to temperature” - ideally you should see them “glisten”. This takes a good hour or so - much like bringing a fine cheese to temperature. Enjoy.

Chorizo Extra ideas.

Chorizo extra is what you typically would use to make tapas with. Let your imagination go - merely think of good flavours that work well together and put them on a slice of bread and you have a pincho (small tapa).

Keep it simple (less is more remember) and let the flavours of the products come through. Look for textures (hard/soft, smooth/crunchy) and balance to also create combinations. It’s less about the origin (asian flavours work brilliantly with chorizo) and more about the “sum total of the parts”.

Chorizo and anchovy, chorizo with rubbed tomato bread, chorizo on bread smeared with home made aioli, chorizo and romesco sauce on baguette, chorizo and olive (on a toothpick), chorizo and cherry tomato, chorizo and manchego, chorizo on a sliced potato (and grilled), chorizo in red wine, chorizo and calamari, chorizo and roast garlic, grilled salmon with chorizo scales (salmon fillet with thin slices of chorizo layered on to look like scales), chorizo and.. you get the idea??

  • slice on a pizza

  • add some slices at the end of a risotto for some flavour punch

  • slice and add to a chickpea, fennel and roast pepper salad

  • warm through pieces in a pan and add a good splash of cider (this is a traditional Spanish tapa)

  • slice thinly and place like “scales” on a fillet of salmon and roast in the oven. The chorizo will crisp up and the fat will baste the salmon beautifully.

Cocido Madrileno. The most comforting, savoury, meaty stew. Ever.

Cocido Madrileño - or simply cocido - is one of Spain's national dishes. It’s a one pot dish, that does take a few hours, not to prepare - merely to cook the meats. And yes, it originates from Madrid.

The most important ingredients of the pot are the meats, which are chosen for their flavour, texture and soul. Salt meat, fresh meat and sausage (chorizo) must all be there, for this is a dish for braising meats, full of flavour, which are made tender only by long cooking. But man, is it worth it.

The pot also contains vegetables, and importantly garbanzos (chickpeas). As well as herbs and aromatics. 

You end up with a three course meal from one pot. Really. 

I typically start this in the morning, and it’s cooked by mid-afternoon. Leaving it to rest till dinner time takes it to another level as the flavours all marry together. Time then for an aperitivo!

  • 500g dried chickpeas soaked overnight

  • 500g cured beef or silverside in one piece

  • 500g salt pork belly (panceta) or fresh pork belly.

  • 1  knuckle gammon/bacon/hock bone, with some meat attached

  • 1kg beef shin with the marrow bone

  • 1/2 boiling chicken

  • 1 pig's trotter, split (if you can’t source this, don’t worry, just omit it)

  • 1 whole garlic bulb - no powder here.

  • 4 bay leaves 

  • 2 onions, studded with 2 cloves

  • 1 Savoy cabbage, quartered

  • 3 carrots, in big pieces

  • 2 leeks, short lengths

  • 500g new potatoes

  • 2 or 3 chorizo extra

  • two handfuls of pasta noodles (fideua)

A few hours before cooking, cover all the salted meat with cold water and leave to soak.

Use a large stockpot. Place in all the meat with the chicken and trotter on top. Add the garlic bulb and bay leaves and cover with water. Bring to a simmer, skim off any scum that rises.

Drain the chickpeas, and them and the onion, carrots, cabbage and leeks to the pot, cover and simmer on the lowest possible heat for 1.5 hours checking occasionally. 

Add the potatoes and chorizo, cook till the potatoes are tender, around 45 minutes. 

Allow to rest, and then carefully drain the broth (caldo) and cook the noodles in that. 

Arrange the vegetables, decoratively on a platter and put the sausage slices on top. This can be served before the meat or alongside it. Arrange the meats and chickpeas on a platter, moistening them with a little broth.

Typically serve the noodles/broth first as the soup, vegetables and sausage as second course and then meats/chickpeas as the main.

This is so good.

Buen provecho.