Chorizo Verde (a.k.a. Green Chorizo)
A sort of accidental, bright, herby and citrusy recipe.
I wasn’t trying to make chorizo, not really.
That is until I brought this one recipe home from when I was working with the Persian lady, made it for my parents on a random Tuesday, and the first thing my dad said was:
“This tastes kind of like chorizo verde!”
Unable to stop by Tres Marías on a recent trip to México (Tres Marías, as well as Toluca, is famous for having many – and amazing – varieties of chorizo), this was the perfect opportunity to satisfy my craving for weirdly colored meat.
While doing research for this recipe, I discovered several things: the green in green chorizo can come from a variety of places: spinach, lettuce (?), herbs, etc.; poblanos are some of the most popular chiles to use, but jalapeños and serranos are also common; and there are less but overall similar spices in green chorizo than in red chorizo, which was pretty surprising (at least to me).
Anyways, this is my take on a chorizo verde recipe:
Chorizo Verde
Equipment
- 1 Food processor
- 1 large skillet
- 1 medium bowl
Ingredients
- 500 g ground pork 70/30, see notes
- 2 bunch cilantro roughly chopped
- ¼ bunch parsley roughly chopped
- 3 clove garlic minced
- 1 yellow onion small, quartered
- 1 jalapeño small, see notes
- 2 tbsp coriander ground
- 1 tbsp vinegar see notes
- ½ tbsp oregano crushed
- 2 tsp pink Himalayan salt finely ground
- 1 tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp sage ground
- oil to taste
Instructions
Herb Paste
- Place the chopped cilantro and parsley in the food processor. Pulse until pureed.
- Add the garlic, jalapeño, coriander, vinegar, oregano, salt, pepper and sage and pulse until a paste has formed.
- Add the onion to the processor and pulse a few times; the aim isn't for the onion to be pureed but to still have some texture (small pieces). Alternatively, you can manually chop the onion finely and stir into the paste.
Chorizo
- In a separate bowl, break down the ground pork and gently stir the herb paste into it.
- (Optional) Cover the bowl and let the chorizo rest in the fridge overnight. This helps the flavors develop better, but you can always skip it if you're pressed for time.
- Place a large skillet on medium high heat. Add the oil. Once hot, add the pork mixture. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the chorizo starts to brown and crisp.
Notes
- This is NOT a casing recipe; that's a whole other story.
- If unable to find a 70 lean/30 fat ground pork, you can always use 438g of 80/20 mix and throw in 62g of pork fat (which I was surprisingly able to find at my local Safeway, go figure). Alternatively, you can use ground pork sausage which already has the right ratio more or less. Keep in mind this will impact the flavor, though.
- You can adjust the number of peppers as well as the variety according to your spice preference.
- Feel free to use any white vinegar you like, such as white wine vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, champagne vinegar, or rice vinegar. I personally love white balsamic.
- As long as the ratio of meat to herb paste is 2/1, you can use whatever amounts of herbs, spices and vegetables as you like, i.e. I like my chorizo to have a more intense cilantro flavor, but if you don't like cilantro, you can swap it out completely for parsley.
If you make this, let me know how it goes! I may or may not attempt to tackle different varieties of chorizo sometime soon.
Andrea Wintergerst
Based mainly in Colorado. Loves cheese, rain, and starry nights. Can usually be spotted in the wild wearing a Spirit Jersey and balancing two cameras. Often laughs and cries at the same time. Barely survived her Master's program, but seriously considering a Doctorate.
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