Smoked chorizos

Spanish pork sausage coloured and flavoured with pimentón and garlic.

Kinds

Cooking chorizo: Soft and semi-cured; for frying, stews and bean pots.
Cured: Dry; sliced and eaten like salami.
Mexican chorizo: Fresh and loose, with chilli and vinegar — a different thing.

Knowing it

Where to buy: Spanish delis.
Worth knowing: Start sliced cooking chorizo in a cold pan: it gives up its red, paprika-scented fat to cook everything else in.

Kitchens that keep it in

Asturias — the green mountains and coast of northern Spain, on the Bay of BiscayAsturianA kitchen of rain and mountains: big white beans stewed with smoked sausage, milk and blue cheese, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and cider poured from a height.7 classics