Chorizo Oil 2009

This is a recipe from an ill fated blog I started last year, I have since perfected the recipe with my good friend Nick...

Right, this is good stuff, really good stuff and after making it, I’m sure, like I did, will become a permanent addition to your kitchen arsenal. Imagine it now, bright red meaty oil that tastes of spicy Spanish sausage and keeps like olive oil. It’ll liven up even the dullest pasta dish, pizza, salad or pesto (especially red pesto!). It can also be used as a base oil when frying to inject a good meaty shot into your onions or whatever you dare try!

Anyway, this is a fun one so whack the music on and try not to burn your fingers.

Jim

Chorizo Oil

Ingredients -
• 300g chorizo (I recommend a decent individual sausage, opposed to the pre-sliced kind, that stuff simply wont do. Look for the ones you get off a rack near the cooked meat deli counter. The non-refrigerated ones that are tied in a vague ‘U’ shape and live with salami‘s and the white French cured sausages. (Spicy or not spicy, your call!)
• 500ml olive oil (I like Greek but more important than its origin is that you choose a mild or light olive oil. These tend to have a less pungent olive flavour which in turn imparts less olive flavour into your finished red stuff, meatyness is the key here!)
• 2 red onions
• 4 cloves of garlic

To make -
1. Cut you chorizo into 5mm coins and then quarter, peel and slice your red onions into a fine shred and shell your cloves of garlic. Use a fine cheese grater to pulp your garlic cloves into a rough paste.
2. Add all the ingredient to a small flat bottomed roasting tray, get your hands dirty making sure it is all evenly mixed and distributed across the bottom.
3. Pour the whole bottle of oil over your mixture and set the bottle aside, you’ll be needing this again later.
4. Ok, to confit (cooking whilst submerged in oil, usually done at a relatively low temperature) you’ll need a preheated oven set to 170°c. Cook for 15-20 minutes giving the whole thing a turn every 5. Saying this you have a choice here. In my opinion the best flavoured and most vividly coloured oil is made by cooking the chorizo for about 25mins or until it has been completely robbed of all its fats and flavour. This will render your chorizo into tough shrunken pieces that cant really be used again. If you opt to cook for nearer the 15 minute mark you’ll be left with chorizo (along with the onions and garlic) that can be used again. Try adding this cooked chorizo mix to a pan containing cream, butter and sliced spring onions, toss through fresh linguine, top with rocket and parmesan and a drizzle with your brand new sausage oil. Good times.
5. When you’ve cooked your chorizo to the desired point remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Allow it to get down to just above room temperature and strain the mixture using a very fine sieve into a mixing bowl or jug. Let the mix sit in the sieve for a bit so as to allow as much of that precious sausage juice to run off.
6. All that’s left now is to pour your oil back into your bottle (do this whilst still warm, don’t put the cap back on the bottle until its completely cooled though or you‘ll get condensation in the neck ). Chorizo oil can be stored like any other pure olive variety so no need to refrigerate, it will also keep for months. After a day or so you’ll notice some white sediment at the bottom of the bottle, this is just the fat solids from the sausage solidifying. So there you go, liquid sausage, pour it on things.