Find us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

Opinion

To the Editor:

Poetry & Art

Classified Ads

Back Issues

Blogs

The Weekly Burger: Chorizo Chimichurri

James Scales
The Commuter

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Weekly Burger: Chorizo Burger
James Scales
The Commuter

Chorizo is traditionally a pork sausage flavored with smoked or dried red peppers, garlic, and other various spices. If you’ve had the delicious sausage you may very well understand that it is my absolute favorite, and why it can make a delicious burger given the right ingredients and sauce. So, without too much hassle, prepare for a delicious Chorizo Burger.

Chorizo Burger
Makes three burgers.

Ingredients for the burger,
1 pound ground beef, to your liking, 15% fat works really well as this burger needs some fat in the meat.
2-3 dried red peppers, any variety will do depending on how spicy you like things. Generally when shopping for peppers you can find out how spicy they are either by packaging or asking someone. Don’t be afraid to use “non-traditional” peppers, like Thai or Japanese peppers, one of my favorites is Japanese.
3 cloves garlic minimum, minced finely
A little less than 1 tablespoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon of cumin and paprika
Black pepper
Ingredients for the Chimichurri
1/4 cup olive oil
1.5 tablespoons white vinegar
1 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced
1/2 small bunch parsley, chopped (1/2 cup)
1.5 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 clove roast garlic, fresh if you don’t want to roast it, but it is delicious.
1 small bay leaf

Equipment,
A burger cooking vessel, whichever one you have grown to love and use. A blender of some sort would be of great help for the chimichurri. Scissors for cutting the dried peppers, usually it’s easier to break the tops off, dump out most of the seeds and cut into little strips with scissors than doing the whole process with a knife.

Instructions,
Start by preparing the dried peppers, take the stem side off and dump out most of the seeds. Some left in the pod are okay but you don’t want to fill your burger with loads of pepper seeds. Slice them into thin little strips or rings depending on how small the peppers are. Set aside, and pull out your ground beef. Into a metal bowl it goes with the salt, fresh black pepper, the garlic, the cumin, the paprika, and the peppers you just sliced up. Mix thoroughly, you really need this stuff to get spread evenly, so if you have to, use a stand mixer to get the proper distribution of the spices. Shape into three equal balls, then into patties.
The chimichurri benefits from a quick chill in the fridge once prepared. So, take your Olive oil, into your blender or food processor add to it the vinegar, jalapeno, parsley, cilantro, garlic, bay leaf, and a little bit of salt and blend till it is completely mixed up, a little bit of chunky is nice if you like the texture, but if this is just sauce for the bun to you, then go all the way. Taste it, if it is too fatty, add a little more vinegar or citrus juice. If there’s too much vinegar, add a touch more of the oil. Put into a bowl and set in the fridge covered.
Back to the burgers, preheat your cooking device be it pan, grill, George Foreman, and get the burgers cooking! Depending on thickness and doneness you enjoy, times vary. Four minutes on each side for my size patties gets me where I like to be, a little pink. Top with some grated Cotija, or any milder white cheese, get some chimichurri on your buns, and enjoy!

Comment

Commenting is closed for this article.