Smoked Or Fresh Chorizo

Our answer

There are usually two types of chorizo sausage that are sold. One is a cured and smoked chorizo that is sold ready to eat and usually thinly sliced (similar to salami). The other is a fresh chorizo sausage (sometimes called Mexican chorizo) that needs to be cooked before it is eaten and is usually sold as sausage links. Nigella's recipe for Spanish Chicken With Chorizo And Potatoes (from KITCHEN) uses the fresh type of chorizo.

This recipe is a traybake and as the sausage cooks it renders out spiced oil, which helps to flavour the chicken and potatoes. We don't recommend using the cured chorizo sausage as it tends to dry out and become hard during the cooking process. If you like a smoky flavour then you could scatter a pinch or two of mild/sweet smoked Spanish paprika (Pimenton de la Vera dulce) over the chicken before cooking, but go carefully as pimenton is a flavouring used in chorizo and it could become overpowering if you add too much extra.