Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Chinese sausage

helenas

By helenas
in China: Cooking & Baking

 Share

Recommended Posts

muichoi

muichoi

Posted
Posted

I know a lot about sausage making, so maybe able to help a bit-Lap cheung is pretty straightforward. Were they steamed or fried, and what were the flavour characteristics you remember?

Tepee

Tepee

Posted
Posted (edited)

In Msia, there is a fresh pork sausage known as Penang Lobak. I made it many, many years ago...I think I winged it, but it's strips of 5-spice powder marinated pork, covered with minced pork plus fats and minced waterchestnut rolled in a bean curd skin, not a sausage casing, though. Deep-fried. Eaten with chilli sauce and a sticky sweet sauce. Yum! I must try this again. Does yours sound like this?

Edited again (it was late): The minced pork and waterchestnut are chopped rather than minced, for texture.

Edited by Tepee (log)

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

aprilmei

aprilmei

Posted
Posted
In Msia, there is a fresh pork sausage known as Penang Lobak. I made it many, many years ago...I think I winged it, but it's strips of 5-spice powder marinated pork, covered with minced pork plus fats and minced waterchestnut rolled in a bean curd skin, not a sausage casing, though. Deep-fried. Eaten with chilli sauce and a sticky sweet sauce. Yum! I must try this again. Does yours sound like this?

Edited again (it was late): The minced pork and waterchestnut are chopped rather than minced, for texture.

This sounds delicious - I'd love to try it. Can you give more details, please?

But no, my grandmother's sausages were stuffed in casings which gave them a lovely crackly crunch. I don't remember that there was anything else with the meat - no cilantro or water chestnuts but I might be wrong. I've e-mailed my mother to see if she remembers any more.

Muichoi (great name!), do you know how to make laap cheung? What about yuen cheung? My gung gung used to make that - and his were also delicious. Is it very difficult?

Tepee

Tepee

Posted
Posted

Aprilmei, I called my mother and was told there's no waterchestnut in the lobak...I confused it with choen geun. Targeted to make it next week; will buy the ingredients this weekend. Then, only will I list down a more precise list of ingredients, OK? I'm another one of those 'a pinch here and there' cook.

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

aprilmei

aprilmei

Posted
Posted
Aprilmei, I called my mother and was told there's no waterchestnut in the lobak...I confused it with choen geun. Targeted to make it next week; will buy the ingredients this weekend. Then, only will I list down a more precise list of ingredients, OK? I'm another one of those 'a pinch here and there' cook.

Don't worry, that's how I cook too: a bit of this and a bit of that. Thanks, looking forward to hearing more about it; it sounds really good and easier than stuffing the sausages into casings.

I don't suppose you have a digital camera for a demo??

Tepee

Tepee

Posted
Posted
I don't suppose you have a digital camera for a demo??

Hoh yee...except I'm not as organised as Hz (who's fighting for the post of my publicity mgr with Sue-On) here. <insert smiley with embarassed look>

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

HKDave

HKDave

Posted
Posted

I think I know the kind of fresh sausage aprilmei is talking about... I've had them at the Dollar Meat Store in Vancouver, where they sell them warm and sliced so you can wolf them down before you even get back to the car. They make them in larger, keilbasa-size casings, I guess about twice the diameter of laap cheung. I don't have a recipe for those, but they taste like ground pork, fat, salt, sugar, soy, and a 5-spice or similar note. No water chestnut or cilantro.

Here's a laap cheung recipe, not tested yet:

http://recipeusa.org/Ethnic/Oriental%20Chi...age%2070832.htm

Hong Kong Dave

O que nao mata engorda.

aprilmei

aprilmei

Posted
Posted
I think I know the kind of fresh sausage aprilmei is talking about... I've had them at the Dollar Meat Store in Vancouver, where they sell them warm and sliced so you can wolf them down before you even get back to the car.  They make them in larger, keilbasa-size casings, I guess about twice the diameter of laap cheung.  I don't have a recipe for those, but they taste like ground pork, fat, salt, sugar, soy, and a 5-spice or similar note.  No water chestnut or cilantro.

Here's a laap cheung recipe, not tested yet:

http://recipeusa.org/Ethnic/Oriental%20Chi...age%2070832.htm

Hi Dave, these are the ingredients I was thinking of - it had a hint of five-spice but it wasn't strong. My grandmother's were especially good because of the skin - it was glossy and crackly. I'm wondering if she coated it with maltose or something.

And that's how she served them - sliced.

trillium

trillium

Posted
Posted

If you use natural casings for sausages, the skin gets very crackly when it's cooked slow enough the the fat from inside bastes the outside and long enough that the water is driven from the casing. Even plain old hotdogs done by one of the 'wurst' masters here in Portland get a wonderful crackly skin when they're grilled low and slow. Hope that helps.

While we're talking about sausages, has anyone made their own lap cheung? I can only get the yucky plastic packaged stuff here, and it is much too sweet for our tastes. We're contemplating making lap cheung during our next hog project.

regards,

trillium

aprilmei

aprilmei

Posted
Posted
If you use natural casings for sausages, the skin gets very crackly when it's cooked slow enough the the fat from inside bastes the outside and long enough that the water is driven from the casing.  Even plain old hotdogs done by one of the 'wurst' masters here in Portland get a wonderful crackly skin when they're grilled low and slow.  Hope that helps.

regards,

trillium

You're right about the slow cooking, here's what my mother said:

"I do remember she used some wine and sugar. No water chestnut. Maybe cilantro. They were roasted in the oven to cook. The meat was coarsely ground or chopped--at least 1/4" diameter and fat was smaller. It didn't keep well because of the fat content."

Not very helpful as far as a recipe. But I do know my grandmother used natural casings.

trillium

trillium

Posted
Posted

While we're waiting, here is the only recipe I've seen, and I've been keeping it in mind since it's original post date (1997!). No lychee wood for smoking, alder will have to do.

regards,

trillium

hzrt8w

hzrt8w

Posted
Posted

I took a look at the laap cheung reciped trillium linked to... it calls for anise, clove and cinnamon. Those are dominating spices. I could not taste any trace of them in all the years I ate laap cheung.

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
trillium

trillium

Posted
Posted

Yeah, I think that too, which is why I'd like to hear about other recipes. It is nearly 2 kg of meat and fat to 3 g of each spice, which is not very much spice. There was some sweetish spice in the lap chung we used to get from the butcher shops, faint but there.

regards,

trillium

hzrt8w

hzrt8w

Posted
Posted
Just so we're clear, are people thinking that a 1:1 ratio of meat to fat is about right? Yikes!

Is this "Yikes" on too much fat or not enough fat? :smile:

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
aprilmei

aprilmei

Posted
Posted
While we're waiting, here is the only recipe I've seen, and I've been keeping it in mind since it's original post date (1997!).  No lychee wood for smoking, alder will have to do.

regards,

trillium

I'm almost positive my grandmother or grandfather didn't smoke their laap cheung, and I'm pretty sure the vendors here don't smoke it either. I remember my grandmother hanging laap cheung and laap ngap (salted duck) on strings in a little homemade cage made of chicken wire so the animals couldn't get to the meat.

 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...