Clever little sausage: Yotam Ottolenghi’s chorizo recipes | Main course (2024)

If I feel like half a cheat when I buy shop-bought chorizo, I feel properly busted when I cook with it – but that’s only because chorizo makes everything taste so deliciously addictive. Adding something so salty, spicy, smoky and fatty to every dish is not perhaps the best way to clear a guilty conscience, though the fact there are folk reasonably close to home making this fine produce does make me feel a little better.

Butterbean puree with sage and chorizo

Cooking chorizo is only semi-cured, unlike the fully cured sort, which is ready to eat much as you do salami. This versatile dish is good alongside roast chicken or fried scallops; it’s also great just as it is, with crusty bread and a green salad. Serves six.

Drain the soaking butterbeans and put them in a large saucepan filled with fresh cold water. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to medium-low, cover and leave to simmer, skimming regularly, for 30 minutes to an hour (cooking times can vary greatly: to check the beans are done, squash one between two fingers; if it succumbs to the pressure, it’s ready).

Drain the beans over a large bowl, to save the liquid, then tip into the bowl of a food processor. Add 150ml of the cooking liquid (you can then discard the rest), three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Set aside: you don’t need to blitz it yet.

On a medium-high heat, warm the olive oil in a large frying pan, then fry the chorizo slices for five minutes, stirring a few times. Add the garlic, fry for a minute, then stir in the sage and cook for a minute or two, until the sage is crisp and the garlic and chorizo have browned a bit. Tip everything into a bowl and set aside.

Spoon three tablespoons of the cooking oil from the bottom of the bowl into the bean mix, then blitz the beans to a puree. Divide the beans between six plates and spoon on the chorizo, garlic, sage and a teaspoon of oil per portion. Finish with a squeeze of lemon and serve.

Roast chicken with chorizo butter, baby peppers and potatoes

Salt levels in chorizo can vary enormously, so fry off a bit first, to check, before adding any extra salt suggested. Serves four, generously.

250g cooking chorizo, skin removed and discarded
80g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
1 tsp aniseed, toasted and lightly crushed
10g fresh marjoram leaves (or oregano)
1 2.2kg chicken
2 tbsp olive oil
Flaky sea salt
1kg desiree potatoes, peeled and cut into 4cm chunks
500g mixed baby peppers (or 2-3 regular red and/or yellow peppers, quartered and seeds removed)

With the chicken’s legs pointing towards you, use kitchen scissors to cut away some of the excess skin hanging over the breasts nearest you. Gently force a couple of fingers under the skin of one breast, to free it from the flesh (take care you don’t tear it), then slowly insert the rest of the hand, loosening the skin over the whole breast, except for down the breastbone; repeat with the other breast. Cut round the skin at the thinnest end of each leg and loosen the skin from the meat in much the same way. Stuff as much chorizo butter as you can fit under the skin of the chicken’s legs and breast, then stuff the rest into the cavity. Brush the bird all over with the olive oil, then sprinkle with a teaspoon of salt (see introduction). Pop the chicken in a 30cm x 40cm oven tray, cover tightly with foil and roast for 40 minutes.

After the chicken has been in the oven for 40 minutes, remove the foil and tip the parboiled potatoes and peppers into the tray. Sprinkle with three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt (again, see introduction), and baste the vegetables and the chicken with the oils that have escaped into the pan. Roast for 30 minutes more (if the chicken starts taking on too much colour, cover it again with foil), until the bird is cooked, the potatoes are crisp and the peppers soft. Leave to rest for five to 10 minutes, before carving and serving.

Grilled creamed spinach with migas

600g large spinach leaves, washed, thicker stalks discarded, leaving you with about 400g
60ml olive oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
4 plum tomatoes, blanched, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
¼ tsp ground allspice
60ml double cream
Salt
75g mature cheddar, roughly grated
100g cooking chorizo, skinned and cut into 1cm dice
1 jalapeño chilli, finely diced
60g crustless sourdough, torn into 1.5cm pieces
½ tbsp lemon juice
5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil and add the spinach. Blanch for 30 seconds, to wilt, then drain. Once the spinach is cool enough to handle, put it in a clean tea towel and squeeze out any excess liquid.

While the spinach is grilling, make the migas. Put the remaining two tablespoons of oil in a small saute pan on a medium-high heat. Add the chorizo, the rest of the garlic and the chilli, and fry for two to three minutes, until the chorizo starts to crisp up. With a slotted spoon, transfer the chorizo, garlic and chilli mix to a bowl, leaving the hot oil in the pan. Add the bread to the saute pan and fry for six minutes, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Tip the fried bread into the chorizo mix, and stir in the lemon juice and coriander.

Once the spinach has finished grilling, leave it to rest for 10 minutes before serving with the migas spooned on top.