Dining with Delia: Day 2
Would you think I was a freak if I copped to, upon landing in any new place, making a beeline for the nearest grocery store? Well, I do. I find it fascinating to see what people take for granted as staples and what they deem luxuries, distinctions that are quite evident to me based on the variety of items offered in any one category.
Spanish chorizo
In my favorite grocery in Norwich, there are 13 varieties of Spanish chorizo (a flavorful, course ground pork sausage traditionally produced on the Iberian Penninsula). Clearly the English have adopted this lovely reddish-orange link as a staple seeing as they need to have it at the ready in hot, whole, smoked, raw, sweet and sliced formats. I’m just pleased to have it at all.
At home I can easily get my hands on the Mexican variety, but that variation is almost always raw and it is flavored and colored with more affordable chili peppers, not with the traditional pimenton (smoked paprika), which is the source of Spanish chorizo’s signature color and flavor.
Today, Delia and I paired up her penchant for eggs with my own for Spanish chorizo in a dish that is, work-wise, very doable for breakfast but has a heartiness about it that would serve you and your guests well for either a lunch or dinner main course. It’s Spanish chorizo hash with fresh fried eggs.
A fried egg atop chorizo hash
Delia’s instructions are to medium dice a couple of potatoes and set them to steam in a pot until they are fork tender. While that is happening, you mince a fat garlic clove and chop a small onion, a bell pepper and a sizable chunk of Chorizo in similar sized pieces. You then sweat the garlic, onions and peppers in a hot pan with a bit of olive oil and then push them aside in the pan and heat up the chunks of chorizo. From there you add the potatoes (which have been drained by this point), a rounded teaspoon of hot paprika, and salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Keep the hash over low heat while you fry as many eggs as you need. Serve the hash on a place with a hot, fried eggs and plenty of break to help sop up the lovely yolk as it picks up a reddish tinge from the paprika.
It’s a sweet, spicy, salty, satisfying bite.
I am with you. I love going to grocery stores and food markets while travelling. You can learn so much about their local economy and culture. I had never heard of Delia before. I will have to check her out. The eggs and hash sound great.
I love chorizo too, mom !