[The Longest Longganisa!]

Hi guys. Does anyone have a tried-and-tested recipe for vigan longanisa? I've tried my hand at making sausages with our Kitchen Aid stand mixer and I've been reasonably successful. One thing I know for sure is that there is vinegar in it, which presumably keeps it from spoiling when sold without refrigeration in the markets. I'm not the squeamish type but my wife is, so I want to try to make this at home too. And a friend in Texas wants to give it a try too. Thanks in advance!

[Making Soy Sauce At Home]

Hi Iñigo. Thanks for the info. It has been unseasonably rainy in what is supposed to be the dry season, so I haven't started on the soy sauce project yet. Will probably try one batch with wheat flour and another with roasted wheat kernels (if I can find whole wheat kernels).

nathan

[Making Soy Sauce At Home]

Thanks very much for your input, Joakim. It's just the kind of advice I need. I live in the Philippines, and if there's something that's abundant here all year round is sun and heat. Hopefully, I can mature my soy sauce in less time. I will study carefully all the procedures so far presented and try to condense everything into a master recipe. I will probably try to use a 25% brine (ie. 250g salt for every liter of water), ferment in opaque containers, and skip the roasting. Could the roasting have disabled some wheat enzyme or protein crucial to the process?

Your miso project sounds interesting. I hope you will let us know how it turns out. I can buy miso (both the Japanese and Filipino styles) here but I'm curious to see how your home-based effort turns out. Like you, I find culinary experimentation fun and extremely fulfilling. Thanks very much again!

Nathan

[Making Soy Sauce At Home]

Thanks very much for your input, Joakim. It's just the kind of advice I need. I live in the Philippines, and if there's something that's abundant here all year round is sun and heat. Hopefully, I will be able to mature my soy sauce in less time. I will study carefully all the procedures so far presented and try to condense everything into a master recipe. I will be probably try to use a 25% brine (ie. 250g salt for every liter of water), ferment in opaque containers, and skip the roasting. Could the roasting have disabled some wheat enzyme or protein crucial to the process?

Your miso project sounds interesting. I hope you will let us know how it turns out. I can buy miso (both the Japanese and Filipino styles) here but I'm curious to see how your home-based effort turns out. Like you, I find culinary experimentation fun and extremely fulfilling. Thanks very much again!

Nathan

[Making Soy Sauce At Home]

The grains used in this experiment are of two kinds:

Organic Wheat and organic Spelt (whole grains sold as a replacement for rice or bulgur in cooking). I roasted them slightly before crushing them in a stone mortar. Some grains where simply cracked and mashed, others turned into flour... I think this method will give a special touch to the whole process - instead of using machine-made flour.

←

Hi joakimlinden. I looked up your blog but it's in Swedish. How did roasting affect the flavor of your soy sauce? I'm curious. I'm thinking of making my own soy sauce too and I'm trying to learn everything I can before I start, lest I end up poisoning myself

Here's a question to everyone: is it okay to use those food-grade plastic containers that are used for food additives etc? I'm not sure if I can find a glass container large enough to hold 4 liters of liquid at a time. Is sunlight important for the soy sauce to brew up correctly or will opaque containers do equally well? I have this nagging worry that all the plastic we use for food is re-arranging our DNA this very moment.

[Pictorial: Steamed Ground Pork with Salted Fish]

Hi prasantrin. I have the impression that you live in Canada. My parents and sisters live in Vancouver, BC. They are able to buy Canadian-made dried and salted fish packed in vegetable oil in the local Chinese supermarkets there. I believe the label said that perch was the fish used. It lasts forever in the fridge.

I was in Shanghai 3 years ago and I bought dried salted fish from the large food emporium across the street from the Ramada hotel. I don't remember the name of the street but it was a pedestrian-only street and quite famous. It was vacuum-packed. I don't know what fish it was but it certainly had very large scales, so it must have been a sizable one. I tried to use it as is for salted fish fried rice but was disappointed with its tough texture. I stuffed the rest of the package's contents in the oil-filled jar of the salted perch and promptly relegated it to the back of the fridge.

It was only yesterday that I decided to try to steam it to soften and rehydrate it, and I had excellent results. It was soft and tender just like the salted Canadian perch in vegetable oil. Anyhow, the long and short of this is that you mustn't despair if all you can find is dried salted fish with the texture of petrified prosciutto. Hope this helped.

nathan

That looks like sturgeon(in your link)...one you would be familiar with in Manitoba, prasantrin.

I'm not a good fish person...I also get salmon and trout mixed up!

I looked it up and someone had told me it was threadfin???? Is that a kind of sturgeon?

I have heard of people sprinkling 5-spice powder on top of the fish before steaming.

If I want to mix the fish and pork into my rice before eating, I keep the pork "loose" by using chopsticks to mix in the seasonings and don't press the meat into a patty.  That way, I get little bits mixed throughout the bowl of rice...along with some sauce, of course!

←

That sounds divine!

←