Camp Cook

[Head Cook]

Here in the Southwest US something we often see and have for breakfast when camping is chorizo and egg burritos.

Chorizo is a spicy, greasy Mexican sausage that us common in this area. Chorizo is one of those things that when it's good, it's really good. But when it's bad, it's really bad. So you want to stay away from the bad stuff.

How can you tell it's bad? Ask your butcher. I'm not sure of the availability elsewhere but around here you can purchase it in the meat department. It is normally purchased without casings, (like hamburger/ground beef) where the packaged meat (steaks, chicken, etc) is kept.

It also comes packaged it tubes similar to breakfast patty sausage. Stay away from this as this is some of the bad stuff. Make sure when you buy it, it comes packaged like hamburger. And I'm not talking about the hamburger in a tube. Ask around too. Maybe someone you know can tell you a good source.

Anyway, back to the burritos. Here's the recipe.

1 to 1-1/2 pounds ground chorizo sausage
8-12 eggs
milk (if desired for scrambled eggs)
1 dozen flour tortillas (10-12" round)
your favorite salsa/hot sauce

About 45 minutes to an hour before breakfast time start cooking the chorizo. This sounds long but you don't have to stand in front of the stove the entire time. The majority of the time is letting the chorizo cook. Brown it in a skillet over medium to medium low heat. Cook it slowly. Chorizo is greasy so you need to cook the grease out.

As the grease cooks out it starts to fill the bottom of the pan, drain it off as best as you can while cooking. We use a folder paper towel, tilting the skillet a bit and then soaking up as much grease as possible. But whatever is easiest. But there will be quite a bit of grease.

After you get most of the grease cooked out and the chorizo is nicely browned, make up a batch of scrambled eggs. I recommend using a separate pan from the chorizo but you probably don't want to dirty another pan. Just cook up some scrambled eggs however you do it, with milk or without. You can cook the eggs with the cooked chorizo but it doesn't come out as good. Don't try to cook the eggs with the uncooked chorizo in the same pan or you'll probably end up with in inedible mess.

When you're done with the eggs, heat the tortillas and cook them a bit. Personally I cook them right over the fire on a two burner stove (no pan). One at a time works best.

As the tortillas heat up, start rolling the burritos. Layer down a good amount of cooked chorizo in the middle of a tortilla, then cover it with a good amount of scrambled eggs and roll it up. You can add salsa at this time or let people add their own. Make plenty of extras and you can eat them through out the day.

[campcookgrandma]

I use left over mashed or baked potatoes instead of eggs. Its very good.
Also, its very easy to burn this meat.