Cooking with chorizo

Chorizo is a spiced sausage from Spain that has become an essential ingredient in many dishes around the world.

Chorizo is a versatile Spanish sausage You will find it cured or fresh. You should always cookf fresh chorizo, as for the cured type, use it to cook or eat it as it is, sliced or cut into chunks.

If it is chorizo of the ready to eat kind and very good quality, it is best to eat as it is. It should say something like "chorizo iberico."  You can use it to cook, but it is just a pity.

Slice it, take the skin off and make a sandwich, best if you use French bread. Most cheeses go well with chorizo in a sandwich. My personal favorite is Spanish Manchego cheese.

Set the peeled slices on a serving dish and present them as a tapas dish with bread slices by the side.

Normal chorizo can be used in sandwiches or tapas, as before, or slightly cooked as in:

Make chorizo croustades laying the peeled slices on buttered bread and grilling. You can make cheese-chorizo croustades in the same way.

Fry lightly the peeled slices in a little olive oil and use them to prepare scrambled eggs, as garnish for fried or over easy eggs, or as filling in an omelet. Scrambled eggs or omelets can also be prepared without previous frying. Try both to see what you prefer.

Slice it, take skin off, fry lightly in olive oil and mix it with cooked pasta. Wonderful flavor! Another option for pasta is cutting the chorizo in chunks -always peel the skin- and fry them with green pepper, n strips. Just mix with the cooked pasta when the pepper is tender.

There is a type of chorizo exclusively used for cooking. Although you can use it with eggs -always fried- or pasta, as I mentioned before, it comes out best cooked slowly with beans or lentils.

You could prepare chorizo-lentil soup. Soak the lentils overnight. Wash them. Set them in a pan, add a large chunk chorizo -in a piece and with skin this time, otherwise it would crumble- and a whole peeled onion, a diced potato, a little olive oil, season to taste -try to do it at the end of the cooking time, as chorizo is usually strong. Cook until lentils are tender; about  20 to 25 minutes in an average pressure cooker (some super fast pressure cookers achieve the feat in 12 minutes) or over an hour over the stove, adding more water when needed, in this case. It comes out great just like that, but you can also experience with herbs, bay leaf, for instance, or a pinch of herbs de Provence go well with chorizo.

You could try this soup with canned lentils -no soaking, no need for a pressure cooker- slicing the chorizo and cooking just until the potatoes are tender, about 15-20 minutes over the stove.

A white bean chorizo soup can be prepared in a similar way as the lentil soup. Soak, wash and set with the large chunk of unpeeled chorizo, and flavor with a little olive oil, whole garlic cloves -to be taken away before serving- and bay leaf.

You can use chorizo as pizza topping or filling for empanada -the Spanish version of pizza calzone or Cornish patties that takes a great variety of fillings. I have seen it used in a chicken and chorizo pie. Fried chunks as salad garnish.

Many typical Spanish dishes would use chorizo: "fabada" from Asturias, "cocido" (literal translation, boiled dinner) from Madrid or Andalucía, "migas" (crumbles) from La Mancha. Some recipes with the word "puchero" are likely to use chorizo.

These are only some suggestions to get you started.