I would like to start off 2024 with a stew from the north of Spain. The two main ingredients are potatoes and chorizo sausage. Normally the stew is seasoned with either the paprika paste called “pimiento choricero” and/or with the smoked paprika powder “pimentón de la vera”. Here in Germany you will find smoked paprika powder, so that is why I went with that. However, feel free to order the “real” ingredients online. I got to learn about this dish in the north of Spain. It comes from the region La Rioja. Quite a few of the relatives of my husband live there. I love this stew in winter, it is hearty, warming, and it is pretty easy to prepare. We are fortunate enough to receive a parcel with chorizo and such every Christmas, so we don’t have to improvise or replace ingredients. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Did you watch the Latin American Streetfood Show on Netflix? If you did, you most likely remember choripán, the Argentinian or Uruguayan version of a hot dog. When I watched the show, I remembered eating this hot dog in Buenos Aires lastly in 2016 and I was determined to make a version that also works in Germany. So I first had to find the chorizo sausage. I thought that was going to difficult, but then, surprisingly I found a small version in our regular grocery store. These were the Spanish ones, but I have to say, they taste very similar to the ones I remember from Buenos Aires. So yay to that. Next I wanted to make my own hot dog buns. I knew that they would be so much better. So I set out and tried different recipes. I was surprised when I realized that hot dog buns are much easier to prepare than I originally thought. You basically throw all ingredients together and then have to wait until you form the buns. Really not that hard. So here you go, you got homemade hot dog buns filled with a chorizo sausage (or in my case two as they were so small), the herb sauce called chimichurri (also homemade), and if you want, some red onion slices. Voilá, you have your Latin American version of a hot dog: choripán!
It is one-pan pizza day! Are you in for a pizza with a thick yet fluffy crust? Then this pizza is for you. It reminds me a little of the one you find at Pizza Hut, but better as it is homemade and from scratch. You will need to invest about 25min into the dough as it has a stretching and folding technique you need to repeat every 5 minutes. But other than that it is mostly waiting as this is a typical yeast dough. I also made my very own tomato sauce. You can go with store-bought, but I didn’t mind chopping garlic and onion for this extra delicious sauce. Since this pizza needs to be made the night before and will be chilled in the fridge, I arranged for it to be eaten during lunch as we like to have our main meal during lunchtime. That’s the beauty of this pizza, depending on when you want to eat it, you can schedule accordingly.