How to Impress with One Simple Ingredient - Chorizo

Whether you’re cooking for one or ten, a dinner party is nerve-wracking. You want to serve something your guests will enjoy and not be bored. But, you also don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen either.

Luckily, there are lots of tricks you can use to impress your guests with one simple ingredient in 30 minutes.

If you’re throwing a dinner party, it’s likely that you’ll be serving many different types of cuisine. And if you want to impress your guests, then you’ll want to serve them something more than just an ordinary meal.

Everyone is familiar with Spain's chorizo, but Portugal has its own slightly spicy pork meat sausage called chouriço, which some might consider being just as good (or even better!) than its Iberian neighbour.

This sausage, ranging from bright red to deep red in color is one of the most common and versatile sausages in Portugal: not only is it used as a sandwich filler, it's also used to give dishes flavour. Chouriço or Chorizo is used in everything from soups, stews, pastries, and bread  

And whilst Portuguese people have dozens of different cooking techniques by far the most fun way is to use a chouriço or chorizo grill dish, known as an assador in Portuguese.

This small, family-run pottery in northern Portugal near Viana do Castelo takes pride in its handmade traditional tableware. No two assadors will be completely identical because of the human element.

By far one of the simplest and most effective ways to make a great impression at a party is to cook chouriço in an assador in front of your guests. It’s easy: first, take the chouriço, and remove the packaging.

Types of cooking methods

Pour a small amount of 50% alcohol to the bottom of the dish to get a high temperature. We recommend Aguadente firewater or Grappa (from Italy). Ideally, however, you should add some whisky or other spirit with high alcohol content to infuse additional aroma and flavour.

Make small incisions and lay it flat on the assador. Light the liquid at the bottom with a match and remove your hand quickly because the flames that come up are big and beautiful!

We recommend dimming the lights for the show – your guests will be mesmerized by the dancing flames and crackling of the meat. You can turn the chouriço over once or twice, until it’s cooked to your liking (some charring on the outside is recommended).

Cut into pieces, serve as a starter with side dishes such as sliced bread and olive oil, grilled vegetables like grilled eggplant or grilled salmon with lime juice or grilled shrimp and watch it disappear.  

A chorizo grill is the perfect indoor barbecue especially designed for cooking sausages. The flavor you get from an assador is unlike anything you would achieve by cooking it on the hob or oven.

Best of all, though it was designed for grilling chouriço, it is widely used for other types of Portuguese sausages such as linguiças, farinheiras and alheiras.

Iberica sells traditional chorizo grill dishes for on-table BBQ. Available in various shapes and sizes.

Our best-seller is the chorizo grill dish that is pig-shaped. Share your grilling recipes with us on Facebook. Check it out in-store.