Wild Pork Chorizo Seasoning
A chorizo spice blend you mix at home and dump onto ground meat at camp.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 60
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Canister stove
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground pork | 2 lb | wild hog if you have it; add 1/4 lb pork fat since wild pigs run lean |
|---|---|---|
| Kosher salt | 1 tbsp | |
| Smoked paprika | 2 tbsp | |
| Sweet paprika | 1 tbsp | |
| Chili powder | 2 tbsp | or a southwestern blend |
| Brown sugar | 1 tbsp | |
| Ground ancho chile | 1 tbsp | |
| Ground chipotle chile | 2 tsp | |
| Dried oregano | 2 tsp | |
| Ground cumin | 1 tbsp | |
| White vinegar | 3 tbsp | in a small leakproof bottle |
Method
- At home, shake every dry spice together in one jar. That is the whole blend.
- In camp, dump the ground pork into a cold skillet or dutch oven, add the spice mix and the vinegar, and work it together with your hands or a spoon until the color is even.
- Let it sit ten minutes if you can spare them. The salt and vinegar need that long to reach the middle.
- Set the pan over the fire or a medium burner and break the meat up as it renders. Fifteen minutes, until no pink is left and the fat has gone red.
- Cook wild pork through, no pink. Wash hands, spoon, and pan in hot soapy water before anything else touches them.
Chorizo is a seasoning problem, not a sausage problem. There is no casing here and no grinder in camp: you buy or bring ground meat, add a blend you already measured at home, and the acid plus salt does the curing work in the ten minutes it takes to get the fire honest. Wild hog is leaner than store pork, so the extra fat is not optional if you want it to fry rather than steam.
The two paprikas and two chiles are doing different jobs. Smoked paprika and chipotle carry the smoke, ancho and sweet paprika carry the color and body, and the brown sugar keeps the whole thing from reading as pure heat. Mix a double batch of spice at home; it keeps in a jar indefinitely and turns any ground meat you find on the road into dinner.
Packing
The spice jar is the part that matters and it weighs nothing. Ground pork rides frozen in the cooler and thaws on the drive; freeze it flat so it thaws even. Vinegar goes in a dropper bottle inside a bag.
Variations
- Hard apple cider in place of the vinegar softens the edge and adds a little sweetness.
- Toast the whole spices in a dry pan before grinding at home if you want more out of them.
- Scramble eggs into the finished pan, or roll it into tortillas, which drops the gluten-free claim.
https://realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/wild-pork-chorizo-sausage