Giveaway and Mexican Chorizo

I'm happy to announce my first giveaway to go along with this recipe. First we'll talk about the recipe then the giveaway. Chorizo, when Europeans hear this word they think of a fermented cured red sausage. But when North Americans hear chorizo they think of a crumbly meat red sausage. Spanish chorizo and Mexican chorizo are very different from each other in looks, texture and taste. And no matter what you may find on the Internet the two are not interchangeable. I love both types of chorizo but for very different reasons and to enjoy in different ways. Today I want to share my recipe for home made Mexican chorizo that you can use in any of your favorite Mexican recipes. I will share some ways to use this chorizo in the coming weeks as I use it up, so stay tuned.

Your ingredients:
1.10 lbs or 500 grams of ground pork
1 Tb. cumin seed
1 tsp. coriander seed
5 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp. ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tb. oregano
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 Tb. garlic powder
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper or 5 whole peppercorns

3 Tb. Apple cider vinegar or substitute red wine vinegar

2 Tb. Ancho chile powder or substitute with a combination of
2 Tb paprika mixed with 1 tsp. red chili powder or 1/2 tsp. cayenne powder

1. In a mortar and pestle grind the cumin seed, coriander seed and cloves. Break up the bay leaves with your hands as much as possible and add them to the spices in mortar and pestle, grind until you have a fine powder. Next add the remaining spices to the mortar and pestle and grind/ mix until everything is well combined.

2. In a large glass bowl using your hands break up the the ground pork . Next you may want to put on some plastic gloves to prevent burning and staining to your hands. Pour in the vinegar and half the spices, spread them evenly on the pork, and start working it into the ground pork. Adding more of the spice mixture until it has all been used up. Keep working the meat until it turns red (from the chili) and all the spices have been well combined.

It's best to let the chorizo sit overnight before using it because this will allow all of the flavors to come together and make for a better tasting chorizo. Alternatively you can freeze the chorizo until you are ready to use it. Since this chorizo doesn't have casings you can form or shape sausages or patties and keeping their form by wrapping them in plastic kitchen wrap. Another way to store the chorizo in the freezer is by portioning out amounts and storing it inside plastic bags to put in the freezer. This way you defrost what you need or want without having to use the whole large batch.

Now you are ready to use the chorizo in all of your favorite Mexican recipes like tacos, sopes, frijoles charros, chiles rellenos or any of your other favorite fusion recipes.

And now I'm really excited to be doing my first giveaway!! You can all tell that I really love my mortar and pestle and use it quite often , so I thought the perfect thing to give away is a mortar and pestle. But not just any ordinary mortar and pestle it's a cherry red Le Creuset Mortar and Pestle Set. I'm also really excited to tell you that I am able to do this giveaway thanks to the fantastic CSN Stores. CSN has over 200 stores that carry any thing and everything you would want or need for your home. I really loved their House wares store collections and the Home Decor store. But my favorite thing was these beautiful cooper back barstools, they have the best and most unique barstool collection I have ever seen. What's also great is that they have stores in the US, Canada and the Uk, and they ship to all these places. You can check out CSN at http://www.csnstores.com

The rules:
- You must live in the US or Canada.
- Comment to be included in the draw, no anonymous comments will be considered.
- Follow me on Twitter / Facebook / Google Follow ( every time you follow me at any of these sites come back to comment again letting me know you have done this so you can have an additional entry count towards the give away.)
- If you tell your friends on Twitter / Facebook or your own blog know about this giveaway come back and comment again with a link to the post to let me know you have done this and again you'll have another entry count towards the giveaway.

Deadline :
April 11th at 11:00 p.m. EST ( 3:00 a.m. GMT, my blog is set to GMT time)

The winner will be announced on April 13th in a separate post here on Spicie Foodie. I will also invite the winner to do a guest post sharing with us one of their recipes using their new mortar and pestle.

Good luck everyone!!