Chorizo - to peel or not to peel?

Pretty much every country in the civilized world has a sausage of some sorts or another.  Naturally, we, in England like to think we produce the greatest bangers of all time.  Having travelled a bit, and sampled the worlds finest sausages, I am beginning to think that actually our sausages are a bit boring.  Pork and leek, and cracked-black pepper seem to be the most extreme length we will go as far as flavourings are concerned.  Of course, there is the school of thought that propagates the theory of, "if it aint broke, don't fix it".  But there is so much more you can do with a sausage.

In the UK we seem to only have traditional sausages, i.e ones that require cooking.  We do briefly flirt with the concept of a blood sausage, but most people find this concept repellent at best.

I do love a cured sausage, whether it be a saucisson from France, a spicy landjaeger from Germany, or my particular favourite - the chorizo from Spain.  Now, I don't want to be accused of forgetting Portugal here, because they also make a mean chouriço - I can testify, having eaten many of them last year.

There's something about the pimenton in chorizo that attracts me.  I adore both the vivid orange colour, and the deep, smoke-infused paprika spice that it yields.  I also love a chorizo that is steeped in red wine and oodles of garlic.

For the uneducated amongst you, there are really two types of chorizo. There is the cured chorizo, which we see frequently in our shops and supermarkets.  This is either dulce (sweet) or picante (hot) - dependent on the type of paprika used.  It is for sure always a smokey paprika.  

The slightly lesser known type of chorizo is the fresco (fresh) variety - i.e this needs to be cooked.  Often you will find this labelled as "cooking chorizo"  This "cooking" label does not infer or confer sub-sufficiency, indeed it often heralds a much more tasty sausage - just don't eat it raw. 

One thing, though, which I cannot abide is the paper-like casings on cured chorizo (and frequently most cured sausages).  I always remove this horrible husk - even with cooking it does little to render it palatable.  I often wonder if I am being pedantic (I often am)?

We're going to squeeze in a barbecue later today, since the weather appears to be turning just in time for the weekend.  I'm going to make some chicken kebabs and I am now horrified by the fact that I do not have any chorizo left to skewer along with my chicken (we ate it all last night in the risotto!).  Ah well, with the benefit of hindsight...