Chinese Sausages:

[Tepee]

Alright. I'm not going to be the only one making sausages, so I'm going to invite you to join me to have some fun.

It all started with Aprilmei asking for a fresh pork sausage recipe.. Along the way we picked up a few recipes for dried sausages too...result of HKDave's search, trillium's search, jackal10's search (look under 'l' for lop cheong), I dug up a video on making lup cheong, and our very own muichoi's recipe:

Here's how I do it-but I'm used to sausage making any since(non-chinese) ones available here are so foul!

Pork Shoulder

Back fat--proportions to taste,you don't actually need as much fat in a dried sausage as in a fresh one.

Salt-3 teaspoons per pound of flesh

Saltpeter-1 pinch per pound of flesh

Cut the meat and fat into 1 inch cubes,add salt and saltpetre, mix well and leave overnight. Drain and dry meat but do not rinse. Mince with two cleavers-much better result than machine. Add dark soy, Shaoshing wine,mei kuei lu, FRESHLY GROUND five-spice powder,chinese rock sugar and MSG to taste. Mix very well. Take thin pork casings,soak in water with a little vinegar, thread onto tap or funnel and rinse thoroughly. Thread onto a sausage filling attachment,piping bag or funnel and fill, not too tightly. Squeeze and twist at appropriate intervals, then tie with string. Hang in a cool breezy place for about a week, making sure the sausages don't touch each other.

The way I see it, making the fresh sausages is much like making lup cheong but without the cure powder, and one is grilled while the other is hung to dry.

Today, I made some Msian pork rolls...much like fresh sausages but wrapped in fu chook(soya bean sheets). I've more or less busted my gallery space, so here's my version of making lobak. I will not post the finished picture of the succulent lobak until I get at least one person who's game to make sausages. If anyone's interested in the lobak, I'll post the recipe later....I need a rest.

Edited October 3, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[aprilmei]

Wow, Tepee, these look amazing! Yes, please post the recipe!

I'm game on making sausages but I can't do it for a couple of weeks because I'm off to Korea tomorrow and after this trip I'll be in Singapore for a friend's wedding. So the earliest I can make them is the weekend of October 22 - and who knows what's going to happen between now and then?

I actually tried to make the fresh pork sausages over the weekend (no pix I'm afraid - I'm pathetic). Used pork belly because I figured it would have enough fat and it did - I picked out the leaner pieces. I think my grandmother must have hand-chopped the pork because even using the largest setting on my mincer, it was too fine (and yes, HKDave - who taught me how to make sausages a couple weeks ago - I had semi-frozen the meat and fat). I used about 600 grams of pork belly, 1/4 tsp five-spice (not freshly ground, as muichoi suggested), 2 tsp salt, about 2 tsp soy and 1 tbsp rice wine... oh, and a little sugar. They were slightly too salty.

Next time, I'm going to increase the amounts of rice wine and five spice, and maybe use honey instead of sugar - my grandmother's had a lovely sweetness. She also must have used saltpetre because hers were pink-ish, not brown-gray, as mine were. They were okay but didn't have enough texture; next time I'll hand-slice some of the meat and hand-chop the fat, as you did, Tepee - seems like a LOT more work.

My guests who tried the sausages - all English - liked them a lot - but what the heck do English people know about good sausages?

and a note to HKDave: I have to 'fess up - I used half of one of your casings!

[Tepee]

Aprilmei, you'll be making sausages? Yay! Don't worry about not taking pics, you're describing them well enough.

Not a good pic....don't like to take pics at nite.

I can't say that this recipe is the recipe for lobak, because I couldn't find any. Those who know how to make it is very secretive about their recipe. But, I think my recipe is pretty close.

Ingredients:

600 gm pork belly (together with fats) - hey, Aprilmei, I worked with 600 g too!

(Marinade)

1 big onion

2 T sugar (hmmm...aprilmei's idea of using honey is good)

1 t salt

1 t pepper

3 T 5-spice powder

1 T dark soya sauce

2 T light soya sauce

5 T potato flour

4 T water

5 pcs fu chook (dried soya bean sheet) buy the unsalted one.

Method:

Trim off fats. Slice meat into 8 X 0.5 cm strips. Where you can't get nice strips, lump them up to chop roughly. Do the same for the fats. Add all the marinade ingredients and keep in the fridge overnight or for at least 6 hours.

Wet fu chook by running under the tap. Lightly shake off excess water. You may start cutting each sheet into 4 quite immediately, as the sheet turns soft and translucent. Trim off the hard edges.

Place a bit of chopped meat on the fu chook closer to one long edge. Lay your mix of lean/fat meat strips on top of that. Top up with a bit more chopped meat.

Prepare a 'glue' of 2 T potato flour with 3 T water. Although I think it's enough just to dab the 'glue' at the edges, I smear this all over the sheet around the filling for insurance. Fold up the bottom edge and make one roll. Fold up the sides and continue to roll to the end as tight as you can. Place finished roll seam side down. Keep all the rolls in the fridge for 1-2 hours for the flavors to develop in the skin.

Heat till slightly smoking enough oil for deep-frying. Fry each side for 5 minutes. Drain on absorbent paper. Normally served sliced.

Lobak is eaten dipped in a sweet sauce and a chilli sauce. The site where I wanted to get the recipe from is not accessible at the moment. Will try later.

Edited October 4, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[trillium]

I'll try to take pics too, but hog butchering time doesn't happen until November, so don't hold your breath!

That lobak looks great... I'm hungry. I like to eat it along with with pei dan and preserved ginger...

regards,

trillium

[jackal10]

Can I enter the ones I made earlier?

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=915380

[muichoi]

Magnificent!

[Tepee]

←

That was love at first sight...

[Tepee]

I'll try to take pics too, but hog butchering time doesn't happen until November, so don't hold your breath!

That lobak looks great... I'm hungry.  I like to eat it along with with pei dan and preserved ginger...

regards,

trillium

←

Yeah! Trillium! This thread will be kept open for you as long as it takes.

Eating lobak with pei dan and preserved (pickled?) ginger sounds sooooooo good.

Here it is, the recipe for the lobak dipping sauce and the chilli sauce.

Edited October 5, 2005 by Tepee (log)