Chorizo

Chorizo refers to both the fresh pork sausage — flavoured with sweet paprika, chilli and garlic — and the same sausage that has undergone curing. Use the fresh sausage for cooking and the cured chorizo for tapas. When buying chorizo, make sure it is authentic, as some butchers add premixed powder to meat and call the resulting sausage ‘chorizo’. Real, fresh chorizo will be plump and reddish, with pieces of meat and fat visible through the skin and will weigh around 150 g (5½ oz) per sausage. Cured chorizo should be very firm and may have a whitish floral bloom on the outside, which is perfectly harmless and is peeled off prior to serving. (A floral bloom is a coating of moulds, which adds flavour and is similar to the bloom on the outside of camembert cheese.)