chorizo-based latin fattie - got some great ingredients but need some ideas! HELP!

[tasunkawitko]

alright, guys - on the spur of the moment today, i grabbed some chorizo. the store only sold it in 10-oz. chubs, so i got three chubs, which is just under two lbs. i intend to smoke a fattie tomorrow with this as a base, and i want it to have an authentic latin theme. by necessity due to availability of ingredients, it will lean toward mexican, but i would like to doo some fusing with other latin ideas,

but in order to do this, i need some help - i live in north-central montana and to us mexican food is tacos, burritos and nachos from the drive-through. i do have some knowlede of latin ingredients and bought an assortment of stuff as a starting point. i'm almost 30 miles from a decent grocery so except for what i ahve and some other basic things that you can get in any small-town grocery, this is what i got:

almost 2 lbs of chorizo
shrimp (not the little pink ones)
mole' sauce
coconut
bananas
avacado
2 tomatillas
chile-lemon powder
lime powder
chile powder
a red bell pepper
chiles japones
mexican oregano
granulated garlic
KRAFT (

) mexican blend cheese
"tapatio" hot picante sauce


that's the "specialty stuff" - we do of course have some basics like onions, garlic, tomatoes etc.

any ideas for putting together a great latin fattie would be appreciated. i don't intend to use all of the above ingredients, i simply bought a sampling of stuff in the hopes that i would accidentally stumble across some good ideas. latin cooking is far out of my comfort zone, so let the suggestions begin!

 

[rivet]

I think you are pretty much set!

You have everything a Latin style dish would have~ just dont pile it all on a fattie; it'll blow!

Chorizo doesn't really go with shrimp, so don't combine them two. The mole is great but be careful about saucin' the fattie too much.

Bananas and coconuts are great latin together, but with nothing else except the shrimpers.

Your list looks like it is right on time! Mix and match the flavors 'cause all your dusts will do good. Add lime to anything you make and it will definitely be better.

Great smokes buddy, and keep us posted!

 

[fired up]

I think that chorizo goes great with shrimp.

 

[tasunkawitko]

guys - thanks for the replies so far!

i;ve got the avacado cubed and sprinkled some lemon juice on it to keep it from turning brown. i'll also slice and dice the red pepper and tomatillas.

rivet, if i read your post correctly, you are saying that the shrimp, coconut and banans might not be a good idea for this chorizo fattie - correct? since this is my first latin experience, i'll play it safe and safe those ingredients for another time.

my current concept is to lay out the diced produce on top of the rolled-out chorizo and then add the hers, spices and cheese - will probably also add some chopped/sauteed onion and garlic. i'll use the chile powder and mole sauce carefully on the surface of the fattie and [robably also a little on top of the filling before rolling.

ALSO - i got to thinking that coco powder might be an intereting addition (unsweetened). i know that if this were straight beef or pork, it should really puut a nice kick on - not sure if it will with chorizo but perhaps i will find out. this is my first time wtih chorizo and i am of course leery of screwing it up tOO badly.

thanks again and keep the ideas coming! i'll probably start assembling and rolling in order to put it in the fridge at 1300 mountain time and then put it in the SnP at 1330 ~

 

[rivet]

Hey great sounding plan and fattie! Please be aware that regarding the shrimp, coconut and banana is just my opinion. Lots of Latins, and folks love them all together with chorizo, pork and stuff.

As you know there are as many Latin foods as there are countries, and each has their own thing! Just find what you like and go for it. Keep the q-vue coming though

 

[tasunkawitko]

alright, guys - here's what i came up with - i'll leve it to you to decide if it will might work and will report when it's all over.

rivet, i got your PM too late, so i improvised based on a few things rolling in my head. but check this out and let me know what you think:

i decided to send the kids up to the store to pick up one more avacado, and chopped it roughly. i then diced two tomatillas, added a couple of pinches of some sort of citrus chile powder and mexican oregano, salt, granulated garlic and onion powder. i crushed a japone chile and added that with a couple-three dashes of the tapatio picante, then a heathy squirt or two of lemon juice. because the avacados were a bit under-ripe, i was forced (ARGH!) to put all this into the food processor and i let it whirl. the result was a little weird, not quite the texture of quacamole because it didn't liquify, but more like pesto without the oil. the color was all guacamole, though, and it actually tasted great! the acidity of the tomatillas and lemon juice worked well with the mild flavor of the avacado and the slight heat of the japone chile worked very well with the other spices. so this is not quite guacamole, but it is pretty dang good.

so, i rolled out my corizo and sprinkled on soime lemon powder and this citrus chile powder. i sprinkled on some of the mexican oregano and some anise seed (this added a very interesting touch to the smells. a also sprinkled on some granulated garlic and onion powder. i then crushed three japone chiles and sprinkled them on. on top of this, i spred on the "guacamole" concoction i made and then added some diced red bell pepper. i ws going to saute onion and garlic, but lo and behold we ran out and the kids forgot to tell me, so there was none of this - no big deal. finally i topped with cheese and rolled it up and put it in the fridge to set up. i am going to put it on the SnP at 1400 and also turn rotate all the meat on there while spritzing.

i cracked open the jar of mole sauce (never worked with this before) and found it to be very interesting. i'll put some on top about half an hour or so before i take the fatty off, i think. because of the obvious cocoa flavor in the mole sauce, i decided it wouldn't be necessary to dust the fatty with cocoa powder and will simply put it on nekkid.

that's progress so far!

 

[rivet]

So far so excellent! Sounding real good and I can't wait to see progress pics

 

[tasunkawitko]

guys, guys, guys.....

i'll throw out the bad stuff first.

due to living in the middle of nowhere PLUS living almost as far from latin america as a US citizen can get, i had one choice when it came to chorizo - some commercially-prepared stuff under the brand name of "cacique." this chorizo is evidently NOT suited for fatties, but read on before you form any judgements.

while assembling/rolling my fattie, i knew somethng was going to be not quite like normal - the sausage was very "soft" for lack of a better word. i figured that when it firmed up and especially after it cooked, it would firm up and be as normal as any other fattie i've done. it sat in the fridge longer than any other fattie i've done has sat (except those that have sat overnight), nearly an hour. when i rolled it out onto the grate, it still seemed awfully soft, but i figuerd once again that the cooking process would take care of that - wrong!

after an hour, when i was doing the charcoal/rotate-meat/spritz shuffle, i noticed that it had flattened a bit, but it looked great! no blowout, no leakage etc. it was browning up nicely etc. a while later i poked the thermometer into the center to see how it was doing. the probe slid right through like there was nothing there - uh oh.... it was only in the 140s, so i waited until 1400, when it had been on the grate for two hours. once again the probe went through it as though it was made of air, but the internal temp was 161 - done!

because of the difficulties i was having, i decided to forego the mole sauce and save it for another project. in order to be cautious, i used two wide pancake-flipping spatulas to remove it from the grate. in spite of this, the entire thing pretty much fell apart on me. probably a quarter of it slipped between the grate slats and down onto the drip pan, which of course is sloped to act as a flame shield. the rest of it ended up piled on a plate, looking for all the world like a sausage/scrambled-egg/rice/diced red pepper scramble. as rivet mentioned with his guacamole experience, the over-ripe avacado had not softened during cooking. it didn't look bad, it just wasn't a fattie anymore and i am frankly amazed that i saved as much as i did from the drip pan.

it sure SMELLED good, though!

i got the obligatory photograph and proceeded to serve it up. my wife is not a fan of spicy food, so she declined to try it. as i dug in, i was once again reminded of a rice dish with sausage or scrambled eggs in it (as far as TEXTURE is concerned), but the TASTE was excellent - very good flavor and the combinations i have mentioned above came out great! absolutely no complaints in the taste department ~ the chorizo itself also tasted very good with a great smokey tang.

so, while i classify this as an execution failure, the concept and final taaste has got to be way up there. overall, and considering i was able to at least save it, i give the project a solid B and if i would have used more-solid chorizo (and possibly riper avacado for the guacamole), it would have been an easy A.

those are some thngs to keep in mind if anyone decides to give this a go. i'll post what pix i have when my server is back to normal.

 

[rivet]

Taz~ I am so sorry to read about your fattie falling apart!

That is a major bummer! At least you were able to salvage some of it and taste it. Sounds like it tasted awesome- lots of good flavors in there.

At least we all who read your post can chalk this up to a learning experience and be careful next time. On your "cacique" brand chorizo, I have bought a lot of it here at wally world. At first I was surprised that it was soft, and not hard like a salami. I've bought it, and cooked it and it was okay- texturewise- , but not like the Spanish chorizo most recipes call for. That has to be firm like a salami. I use it in eggs and casseroles where the flavor is what you want and the texture and moisture not important.

I can't get that firm chorizo anywhere here either. Check out this place, I order the drier chorizo from them and it's darn good.

http://www.tienda.com/

Thanks for all your efforts and posts , though! You are still blazing new paths into culinary excitement!

 

[tasunkawitko]

i appreciate the words of encouragement, rivet - the fattie falling apart was in my opinion just a disappointment - i was more interested in the flavor combinations and i think i hit pretty close to the X with this. softer, more ripe avacado and possibly some sort of sweet ingredient would ahve really set this off, and i think if i would have gone ahead with the mole baste, it would have added to the final product as well.

i like chiles, but i am not a fan of bell peppers (green). for this, i decided to try a red, orange or yellow bell pepper and and chose red. the flavor is better than green, but i still have a ways to go before i will be a bell pepper fan! having said that, the flavor of the red pepper did lend a lot of authenticity to this fatty and provided credentials that definitely helped it earn a true classificaltion as latin.

so, different chorizo (home-made or perhaps ordered from your source!), riper avacado and perhaps some sort of sweet component for a little more balance, and this will definitely be worth a try!