Chorizo Pasta
Prep: 10 Minutes | Cook: 30 Minutes | Resting Time: N/A | Total: 40 mins
Makes 6 Servings
Ingredients
1 box Pasta
16 oz Chorizo
2 tbsp Oil
1 Onion, sliced
1 tbsp Red pepper flakes
4 cloves Garlic, sliced
Salt
2 tbsp butter
2 eggs
Recipe Summary
Prepare onions and garlic.
Boil water for pasta. Cook pasta according to al dente directions
Cook chorizo. Remove from pan once cooked.
Cook onions until soft.
Add red pepper flakes and garlic. Mix with chorizo.
Add butter, pasta, and pasta water to pan. Remove from heat when butter is melted.
Add eggs to the pasta and mix around to coat evenly.
Recipe
Boil a pot of water and cook pasta to al dente based on packaging directions.
Heat a pan on medium heat and add oil. Add chorizo to the pan and cook until crispy edges form. This requires you to leave the chorizo untouched for several minutes. Once the chorizo develops a thin crust, stir occasionally until the chorizo is fully cooked and remove from the pan.
Add onions and red pepper flakes. Stir occasionally and cook onions until they begin to get soft. If there is fond at the bottom of the pan, you can add a little bit of water to help loosen it up and get the most of your chorizo flavor.
Add sliced garlic and a pinch of salt and mix throughout.
Add chorizo back to the pan and mix with the onions and garlic. By this time the pasta should be fully cooked and should be added to the pan. Retain 1 cup of pasta water when straining your pasta.
Add 2 tbsp of butter and ½ cup of the pasta water to the pan and mix to distribute evenly.
Once the butter is melted, remove the pan from heat and add 2 eggs to the pasta. The heat from the meal will cook the eggs delicately and combined with the fat from the butter and starch from the pasta water will create a glossy sauce for the pasta (similar to carbonara).
Why the Recipe Works
Mexican chorizo is uncooked and can be used similarly to ground beef. In this pasta dish, we use chorizo as the main flavor and add aromatics (onions and garlic) to create some additional depth of flavor. Adding butter, pasta water, and eggs creates a sauce that will help bring flavor to the rest of the pasta.
The starch from the pasta water combined with the rendered chorizo fat, butter, and eggs creates a glossy emulsion that serves as the sauce for this dish. The eggs are not tempered ahead of time, but instead the pan is removed from heat prior to adding the eggs in order to avoid overcooking them and created scrambled eggs in your pasta. The residual heat from the pasta and chorizo will slowly cook the eggs and evenly coat the noodles giving a glossy texture to the dish. This technique is very similar to how pasta carbonara is made except here we are not using any cheese.