Tag Archives: Chorizo

Forever Nigella: Ciao Italia!

Posted on March 23, 2011 by | 6 Comments

This month’s Forever Nigella theme is Ciao Italia. Nigella has made many Italian recipes over the years so they are many to choose from. I searched on Nigella’s website trying to find the perfect Italian recipe I could recreate however I wanted to do something a bit different. I moved my search onto the BBC Food website and found this recipe,  Small Pasta with Salami made with her store cupboard ingredients.  My store cupboard ingredients are slightly different to Nigella’s so I made my version of the dish below with things leftover in my kitchen. Overall, I think it went very well and I will be making it again soon.

Jo’s Fusilli with Chorizo and Peas

Ingredients (serves 1 hungry person!)

  • 100g Fusilli, cooked according to the packet instructions
  • 6-8 Chorizo slice, cut into smaller bits
  • 2 inch piece of chorizo sausage, cut into 1cm rounds
  • Half an onion, finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • Handful of frozen peas
  • Small bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
  • Olive Oil
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Parmesan cheese, to grate on top (optional)

Method

  1. Put the olive oil in a frying pan and add the chopped up chorizo slices and rings. Fry for a couple of minutes until the oil has seeped out of the chorizo.
  2. Add in the onions, garlic and salt and fry for a few minutes until softened.
  3. Add in the chopped tomatoes and allow the sauce to simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
  4. Add in the peas and allow to cook for a minute. Then turn off the heat, add in the parsley and stir.
  5. Serve in a big bowl with the cooked pasta with big grating of Parmesan cheese on top. Enjoy with a glass of red wine!

Ciao Italia!

Happy Cooking! :-)

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Posted in BBC, BBC Food, Chorizo, cooking, Forever Nigella, Nigella Lawson, Recipe

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Venison Chorizo and Tomato Salad

Posted on March 2, 2011 by | 4 Comments

A while ago, I was lucky enough to be sent a sample of Great Glen Game Venison chorizo.  I love chorizo in all forms and have already used their venison chorizo in my Chorizo, Red Wine and Pea Risotto. However this time I wanted to do something different with the Venison Chorizo, so I asked the good people of Twitter to help me.

The lovely Carol from Growing Direct (@GrowingDirect) suggested that I make Jamie Oliver’s Best Chorizo and Tomato Salad from his book ‘Jamie Does’ with it. I thought this was an excellent idea and a fantastic way to show off the venison chorizo.  I adapted the recipe slightly and my version is below:

Venison Chorizo and Tomato Salad

Ingredients

  • Venison Chorizo, cut into 1cm rings
  • Vine  tomatoes – roughly chopped
  • Cherry or other small tomatoes, halved
  • 3 or 4 spring onions
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon red wine Vinegar
  • Small bunch of parsley, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

  1. Fry the venison chorizo rings in the olive oil until crisp and the oil is tainted red from thepaprika in the chorizo.
  2. Meanwhile, put the tomatoes and spring onions in a bowl, with a tablespoon of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Add in the parsley and mix everything together.
  3. Add garlic to the chorizo and fry for a minute until cooked.
  4. Remove the frying pan from the heat and add in the red wine vinegar to stop the cooking process. Pour into the bowl with the tomatoes and spring onions.
  5. Stir everything together so everything is covered with the chorizo oil and serve in a large bowl with crusty bread and Jamón ibérico on the side.  Enjoy!

I even attempted some Jamie Oliver Style presentation with it, what do you think?

Many thanks to Great Glen Game for sending me a sample of Venison Chorizo and to Carol for suggesting a fantastic idea for what to cook with it :-)

Happy Cooking! :-)


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Posted in bread, Chorizo, cooking, food, Great Glen Game, Growing Direct, happy cooking, Jame Does, Jamie Oliver, Twitter, Venison Chorizo

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Jo Cooks: Chorizo, Red Wine and Pea Risotto

Posted on January 19, 2011 by | 16 Comments

This is first of hopefully many posts where I will be filmed actually cooking in my kitchen. Today I am making Chorizo, Red Wine and Pea Risotto. This was originally a Rachel Allen dish, however I made an adapted version of it a while ago here and loved it and have made it many times since.  The chorizo in this recipe comes from The Bath Pig who I met at the BBC Winter Good Food Show. It was yummy!  I hope you enjoy my little video. I was very nervous making it. All constructive feedback is welcome.  Many thanks to Marie for doing the camera work. It is much appreciated. :-)

Happy Cooking! :-)

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Posted in BBC, Chorizo, comfort, cooking, food, foodie, happy cooking, Marie, Rachel Allen, Recipe, Risotto, simple, spicy, Thank you, The Bath Pig, Video Post, wine

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Red Risotto!

Posted on November 3, 2010 by | 7 Comments

Recently, I was watching Good Food (it would be on in our house all the time, if Stuart would let me!) and I saw a Rachel Allen programme called ‘Home Cooking‘. In this programme, she made a chorizo, red wine and pea risotto. This seemed an ideal dish to me as I love red wine, chorizo and risotto and was interested to see how they would work as one dish. I used venison chorizo from Great Glen Game and it was yummy! I cannot wait to cook with it again :-)

I adapted Rachel’s recipe slightly as I can not understand why the chorizo was not cooked in the risotto from the start, therefore I added the chorizo in before the onion so that that everything could have a bit of its lovely spicy flavour. I also did not use fresh peas as they are not in season at the moment and I think they would be wasted in this dish. Frozen peas worked fine, added in near the end of cooking. Fresh peas sweet flavour would of been lost as the chorizo and the red wine overpowered it.

I absolutely loved this risotto. I prefer it to normal white wine risottos. The red wine and the chorizo gave it a real kick and the sweetness of the peas was an excellent contrast. I will definitely be making this again!

Happy Cooking! :-)

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Posted in Chorizo, comfort, cooking, food, Good Food, Rachel Allen, Recipe, Risotto, simple, wine

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Guest Post from Nora: Spanish bean stew

Posted on February 3, 2010 by | 4 Comments

Hello Jo fans, I’m Nora from Nora the Kitchen ‘Splorer. After Jo very kindly did a post for me, I’m returning the favour. This is my very first guest post, so I’m just hoping I can keep up with Jo’s high standards.

So, for this post I decided to revisit an old favourite. A few years ago, I lived in Spain, working as a English teacher, trying to teach the present perfect tense to shouty Spanish kids in exchange for very little money. But of course the upside was easy access to delicious Spanish ingredients, such as Serrano ham and chorizo. As I was a feckless youngster, my mum was in the marvellous habit of teaching me easy and tasty meals to keep me going and this was one of them. A really flavoursome, comforting stew that’s really easy to make, as long as you have a little patience.

However, I wasn’t optimistic about recreating the taste of one of my favourite dishes in my British kitchen. Especially as chorizo is a lot more expensive here so I used quite a bit less, and I replaced the big white Spanish fava beans (made famous by Hannibal Lector!) with small white Italian cannellini beans. But actually it had the exact same intense, smokey flavour – and was perfect for a dark and dreary winter evening. So, here’s the recipe:

250g white beans, either cannellini or fava, if you can find them

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

2 carrots

125g chorizo (more if you’re feeling rich!), chopped into small pieces

250ml passata

1 tsp paprika

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper

a slug of red wine

Cover the beans with water and soak for at least 5 hours, ideally overnight. Bring them to the boil and simmer until soft, about an hour and a half.

Peel and chop the onion, garlic and carrots. Add to the beans in the saucepan along with the other ingredients. Simmer very gently for about 2 hours. And that’s it!

Serves 2 very generously.

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Posted in Chorizo, cooking, Guest Post, Recipe, Spanish

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Sunday Brunch

Posted on November 25, 2009 by | 2 Comments

I know it is the middle of the week and is early to be discussing weekend breakfast, but this is the first time in a while, I have had chance to post. However I made this omelette/frittata a couple of weeks ago and have been wanted to share it with you since.

I love getting up early sometimes on Sunday morning to have the house myself, have a cup of coffee, watch TV, do a little housework perhaps and enjoy breakfast in peace by myself. The other Sunday, peace and tranquilly was achieved and I was able to make my favourite omelette/frittata (not quite sure which one it is, please decide for yourself after reading the recipe.)

Spicy Sunday Morning Omelette/Frittata

Ingredients

  • Half an onion, chopped finely
  • 1 medium sized chili, chopped finely (with or with seeds, it depends on how hot you like it!)
  • 2 eggs
  • Ham, chopped into squares
  • Chorizo slices (I just used the ones from the supermarket – they are OK for this and pizza toppings – not much else)
  • Garlic and Herb cheese, broken up into rough chunks (I used Boursin but it’s up to you)
  • Cheddar Cheese, grated (my favourite is Cathedral City- however I have a sample of Kerry Low Low Cheese to try now so expect a post about this soon)
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Dried mixed herbs (any you like really. I used Italian mixed herbs)
  • Olive Oil

Method

  1. In a frying pan, put in a glug of olive oil and fry the onion, chili and a small pinch of salt until softened.
  2. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a jug or small bowl, whisk lightly and add the dried herbs and some salt and pepper.
  3. Pour into the frying pan with the onion and chili and turn heat down to the lowest setting. Allow to cook until the eggs are set on the bottom
  4. Add your toppings. Chorizo and ham first, garlic and herb cheese and top with grated cheddar.
  5. Put under a preheated grill until cheese has melted and bubbling. I enjoy leaving the garlic and herb cheese in chunks, as it doesn’t melt completely then as it can be quite thin and runny once melted. Then serve and enjoy with a glass of orange juice.

That’s it for now. Short post this time but I will be back with another post soon, either involving cheese or a joint post with my friend Marie about cooking for a crowd.

Happy Cooking! :-)

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Posted in Chorizo, cooking, Recipe, spicy

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Super Soup!

Posted on August 16, 2009 by | 8 Comments

Spicy Chorizo and Pepper Soup

This month I decided I would take part in my first cookery blogging competition. I decided to take part in the No Croutons Required challenge.  The idea of the challenge is to make a soup or salad on a particular theme. This month’s theme is peppers. I love peppers but have never made a soup with them before, so after much thinking, I decided to make Spicy Chorizo and Pepper Soup.

Chorizo is another one of my favourite ingredients and I got the chorizo I used in the soup from Andrew from the Wild Food Larder (he is on twitter too – @Sarty1). He makes it himself and it was one of the best chorizo I have ever tasted. He can often be found at the Bath Farmers Market, if you want to pop along and say hi and see the other wonderful things he makes and sells. Thanks Andrew for sending the chorizo quickly. I really appreciate it.

The recipe below is entirely my own invention so I welcome comments on what you think. Please tell me if you have a go cooking it or any other recipe on this blog, my contact details are on the About page.  I appreciate all comments and other communications with my readers.

Spicy Chorizo and Pepper Soup

Ingredients

• 3 medium white or red onions, chopped up into chunks

• 4 bell peppers (any colour you like) chopped up into chunks

• 4 roasted pepper (from a jar or make your own)

• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and slightly crushed

• 1 medium chilli, top off with seeds removed if you prefer

• Tin of chopped tomatoes

• 1 chorizo sausage (half chopped into ½ cm rounds, other half chopped into smaller bits to be blended – 1 round cut into 4 smaller pieces )

• 250ml vegetable or chicken stock

• Big bunch of parsley, chopped finely

• Sea salt and black pepper

• Olive oil

Method

• Put glug of olive oil into heavy based saucepan. Allow to heat up and then add chorizo rounds. Allow to fry for a minute so that there lovely red oil flavours the olive oil. Remove and put on plate and forget about them for a bit.

• Now add the chopped bits of chorizo and fry for a minute before adding onions and peppers. Add some salt to help the onions and peppers soften.

• In a small food processor or pestle and mortar, add the roasted peppers, garlic and chilli and purée or bash until thick ish paste. Add to the softened onions, peppers and the chorizo bits.

• Add tin of chopped tomatoes and stock and allow to simmer for 5 minutes until thickened slightly. Add in half your parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Purée the soup with a hand blender. Leave to cool a bit if you want or if using normal blender or food processor. Add in rest of parsley and the chorizo rounds and then serve in a big bowl with crusty bread and a glass of red wine. Enjoy!

I think I have done quite well with theme as I used three different types of peppers: chilli, bell and roasted, along with Andrew’s delicious chorizo. I have enjoyed doing my first cooking blogging competition and I intend to start taking part in many more.

Happy Cooking! :-)

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Posted in Chilli, Chorizo, competition, cooking, No Croutons Required, Recipe

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