Name: Chorizo
Yield: About 5½ pounds
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste; 1 teaspoon sugar; 5 pounds ground pork (3:1 ratio of lean to fat); 1 teaspoon ground cloves; ¼ cup cider vinegar; 2 to 3 tablespoons lard; 4 to 5 large garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tablespoons); ¼ cup dry sherry or red wine; 4 ounces pure powdered red chile, stirred to a paste with ½ to ¾ cup boiling water; 2 tablespoons dried Mexican oregano, crumbled; 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (coarse grind); 2 teaspoons ground true (Ceylon) cinnamon, preferably freshly ground in a spice grinder, or ½ to ¾ teaspoon ground U.S. “cinnomon”

Preparation info

About
5½ pounds

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Food from My Heart

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1992

About

Some of my earliest ranch memories are of the butchering/cooking sessions that followed every time we slaughtered a hog. This was always cause for celebration because all the women of the ranch congregated in our kitchen to help, laugh, and gossip, and everyone got something to take home afterward. Everything—I mean everything—was used and converted into some delicacy. There would be big tubs sitting over a barbecue pit to render the fat. This produced scrumptious chicharrones