Chorizo Cups

Many many months ago (possibly years) I went to a party at house of the Reader, who is the Male of the Species’ sister. She is an amazing cook, and she served these… things, I never got around to asking her either what they were or asking for the recipe, though I certainly meant to because I would love to be able to make them myself. Anyway, it’s now ages later and I felt it would be a bit awkward asking the Reader now, not to mention that she might not even know what I was talking about. Also, where’s the challenge in just having the recipe? I decided to reverse engineer them from what I remembered being in them, and see if I could come up with something that, even if it wasn’t precisely the same, was at least similar and tasty! So, I started off with doing a basic mix of what I specifically remembered being in it, figuring that if it didn’t work I’d just keep experimenting. However, having tested it I think I’ve got something pretty good, so here is the result.

I started off with the mix for the innards. I took two onions, sliced them, and then started caramelising them in a whole lot of butter. Once they were fairly there, I threw in a generous pinch of salt and cracked pepper. I gave it a little longer, and then I added a red capsicum, sliced finely into long strips. When I say finely, I mean about the depth of a single layer of onion since they’re much thicker in terms of depth than onion. Once it’s well cooked, add a teaspoon of brown sugar and a teaspoon of soy sauce. Stir that through thoroughly. Now you add your chorizo. Since this was just an experiment, I used cheapskate chorizos (uncooked) from Coles- if I ever make it for an actual event I’ll use good ones from the deli. Still, pretty good even with low class chorizo. So, cut it in half lenthways, and then into half circles. Stir that through your mix and let it cook a bit, and it should come out looking something like this. Yes, I cooked it in a wok (I cook practically everything in a wok )

Now, to keep yourself busy while you’re letting it caramelise at various stages you can do the next part. With this size of mix, you need two sheets of puff pastry, which makes 8. Get yourself a muffin tray, and grease the holes with a little butter- you really need to do this, so that they come out easily and don’t break up when you pull them out. Now, cut your pastry into square quarters, and push it gently into the muffin holes, folding the pastry where it needs it and allowing the tops and corners to stick up. (There’s more than 8 in the photo, because the shots are from the second attempt when I made a bigger mix ’cause I ate all the of first lot).

Have your oven preheated to 200C, and throw them in for 10-12 minutes. Done! Wasn’t that easy? They’re great for parties because they’re filling, but still fingerfood. Once they’ve been cooked they should be firm enough to pull out onto cooling racks without collapsing. Of course, depending on how fast you eat them, this may never be a problem. I somehow don’t think it’ll ever come up for me . Many thanks to the Reader for the idea- I suppose now I should contact her for the recipe and see how close I got to the original!

P.S. Apparently I was very close- the only differences are that she doesn’t add brown sugar and soy, and fries the chorizo in a separate pan to allow it to get a little crispy.

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Tagged: Finger food, Pastry

Posted in: Recipes and methods