Okay, since I don't want to sit here and stew about my blown gun purchase, I decided to make some more sausage. So today we made up a big ole batch of my Chorizo recipe, and tomorrow we will butch up another 10 lbs of pepperoni sticks.
In case anyone wants to contemplate making up some of my fine Chorizo, here's the recipe:
Big Ben’s Boosted Chorizo
2 lbs lean ground pork
4 tablespoons mexican chili powder
1 1/2 tsp Cayenne and 1 1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika (if you like to step on it)
Or
1 tablespoon smoked paprika (if you are feeling tender)
1 tsp Green or Chipotle Tabasco sauce
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Olive oil
1 ounce tequila (don’t waste the good stuff unless that’s all ya got)
1/2 cup ice cold water
In a bowl big enough to handle it, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly (a large wooden spoon is good, bare hands are better). When well blended, cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours (the longer the better, overnight is the usual). When ready to use, remove as much as you need, cover the rest and refrigerate or freeze if need be. Break the sausage up in a medium hot skillet and add a jigger or so of water to induce the rendering process. Once the sausage starts rendering reduce heat to medium and continue to fry up until the water is gone and it is cooked through (this may be hard to tell, as the chili powder keeps the meat red, so judge by the sizzle). When the sausage is cooked through, serve onto warm tortillas burrito style. Usually I scramble in some eggs (usually more egg than sausage) to give it more character and stretch the sausage out amongst more servings. You can add any type of mexican style toppings, like grated cheese, sour cream, even guacamole and black olives to make the dish more robust. This is premium cowboy breakfast food, the kind I’d serve at the ranch house on Sunday after a full week’s worth of hard work, were I in the cattle business. In New Mexico they’d serve refried beans and rice on the side, but I think fried taters are a better “acoutrement” (my Irish blood I suppose).
Alternatively, I will add some flour to the cooked sausage (enough to bind the fat into a roux) and water to make a gravy for my biscuits instead of using a country breakfast sausage and milk based gravy. Adding a few slices of jalapenos or some chipotle to the dish will only make it better, unless you can’t stand the heat. Otherwise it is pretty mild, but flavorful.
I made 12 lbs.
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)