Chorizo Verde (Green Chorizo)

Finding a silver lining in 2020 is hard for many people, but for Manny and I we focus on opportunity and food discoveries. While Manny's family is Hispanic and very familiar with chorizo, none of his ten siblings nor his mom had tried chorizo verde before we stumbled on it during the early days of the shelter in place for COVID in March of this year. Of course, my first reaction was "I want to make some from scratch," so we found a basic recipe, ground up some pork and beef, and made our first batch. It was totally different from the chorizo rojo that nearly all Mexican families know well, but equally delicious and "fresh." Like so many things in the Hispanic culture, it just boils down to the differences between the flavor profiles of green chiles and red chiles. There's red salsa and green salsa, red rice and green rice, red chorizo and green chorizo. All delicious, all flavorful, and all cater to tantalizing the tastebuds of the foodie in you. It's no wonder why the Mexican flag is green and red separated by white. Now I will go on the soapbox briefly... I can't help but find it comical that there are words in English that have several possible words in Spanish and others that either don't have a word in Spanish or one word that can mean many things. For example, man can be hombre, varón, señor, caballero (and many others) and fish could be peces for the live animals or pescado for the fish on your plate, however melón somehow covers all melons (except watermelon, which is sandia) and chorizo is basically all types of sausage. For the easiest language to learn, it sure is an enigma at times.

We grind our own meat for this recipe, but that's not required. We find it gives us the control over both the coarseness and fat content of both the beef and pork. When we grind, we use the coarse grinder head and only pass the meat through once. Poblanos are magical chiles. We can't get enough of them, in fact, we don't use bell peppers at all anymore, just poblanos. If you have trouble finding them, Anaheim or Hatch chiles are a good substitute and don't need to be seeded first. Serranos add heat, but not overwhelming amounts; if you have trouble finding them jalapeños are a good substitute, but seed them before using them. We add more garlic than this recipe calls for, but after you make it once, you'll know what you want to tweak to make this one all your own.

As always, from our table to yours... #SpiceConfidently #EssenceOfFlavor #ChemistryInTheKitchen #CasaMSpice

— Mike Hernandez

ingredients

For the Wet Ingredients:

5 ounces spinach
8 serrano chiles, stem removed
6 poblano chiles (or alternatively Hatch green chiles), stems removed, seeded (poblanos only), cut into strips that will fit into your blender or food processor
1 cup apple cider vinegar
8 cloves garlic

For the Dry Ingredients:

2 ounces raw pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons white pepper, freshly ground
2 bay leaves
5 whole cloves
2 teaspoons dried oregano
20 grams Casa M Spice Co® Chain Reaction®®
25 grams sea salt

Pulling It All Together:

2 pounds ground pork, fattiest and coarsest grind available
1 pound ground beef, fattiest and coarsest grind available

FEATURED QUOTE

It was totally different from the chorizo rojo that nearly all Mexican families know well, but equally delicious and "fresh."

- Mike Hernandez

LET’S GET COOKING

1.
In your blender add all dry ingredients and blend/process to combine and grind all ingredients (be careful when you open the lid not to inhale the fine dust). Add the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl or plastic tub large enough to hold all the ingredients in this recipe and allow enough space to mix thoroughly.
2.
Add the apple cider vinegar to the dry ingredients and mix to combine all the dry ingredients in with the vinegar..
3.
In a blender or food processor, purée the spinach, garlic, and green chiles, then add them to the bowl with the dry ingredients and vinegar. Mix to combine everything.
4.
Add the ground meats and mix thoroughly.
5.
Turn the mixture out onto a parchment lined sheet pan that will fit on a shelf in your refrigerator. Spread the mixture out over the sheet pan uniformly, then poke holes in the surface to help with aeration/drying.
6.
Place the sheet pan in the refrigerator for three days to dry/cure. Every day pull out the sheet pan and poke more holes.
7.
After three days the chorizo is ready. You can use what you want from that batch, then put the rest in a container for later use. We typically dose out the remaining chorizo into 1 pound bags that we freeze for later use.
8.
The chorizo will keep for about a week in the refrigerator or indefinitely in a vacuum sealed bag in the freezer.