The Longest Longganisa!

[AlexBernardo]

Longganisa (or longanisa/longaniza) is a Philippine sausage that's an all-time favorite of mine. It's made of pork (though there's a chicken variety) and is about two-thirds the length of an Italian sausage. My guess is that longganisa is a local adaptation of the Spanish Cantimpalitos sausage which comes from the area of Cantimpalos near Segovia, Spain.

We Filipinos love to eat it for breakfast, usually with garlic-flavored rice. As far as I know there are three basic styles popularized by the provinces where they originated: Pampanga, Vigan, and Baguio. The Pampanga-style is by far the most popular. It's sweet and longer than the other two types. The Vigan (my favorite) is about half the length of Pampanga longganisa, not sweet and has a pungent, sour taste; very close in taste to the Spanish Cantimpalitos. The Baguio-style is even shorter, about thumb-size, and is sweet and garlicky.

Undaunted by typhoon Xangsane (Milenyo), the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, the parade of the longest longganiza went on today as scheduled in Baguio. It's a 2.3 kilometer long Baguio longganisa made by a local meat shop. Actually, the meat shop made a 4.8 kilometer long sausage chain, but not enough volunteers can be found to carry that length so they had to shorten it.

Here's the web link to baguiocityonline.com if you'd like to check out photos.

The longganisa took over a week to prepare and about 70 pigs were used. Afterwards the sausages were sold for P30 (US$60 cents) per dozen. What an incredible and tasty event!

[Domestic Goddess]

I wish I was there. I love longganisa! Especially the garlicky ones (made from carabao [water buffalo] meat. I prefer it to the other favorite Filipino breakfast meat - tocino (sweetened pork)

[prasantrin]

I'm the opposite--I prefer tocino to longganisa! But I love a good longganisa, too!

Mmmmm, longganisa with freshly cooked rice. I wonder if I can find some Filipino grocery stores around here...

[tristar]

Anybody have any recipes for the non-pork ones? I would love to give them a try.

Regards,

Richard

[Domestic Goddess]

Richard/Tristar - Here you go...

Chicken Longganisa

1 kg ground chicken

2.5 tbsp salt

1.5 tbsp sugar

1.5 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp wine

2 tsp pepper

2 tbsp garlic

sausage casing

Mix everything, case (or shape into patties or fingers for skinless longganisa), and cure for 5 to 6 days.

[Gul_Dekar]

I can't seem to find sausage casings sold for retail here. What else could I substitute it with?

[AlexBernardo]

I can't seem to find sausage casings sold for retail here. What else could I substitute it with?

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Gul. You can make it skinless (without casing) as Domestic Goddess mentioned. To make it easier to form, you can also roll each sausage in wax paper and let it cure, then unwrap and cook.

Now, cooking longganisa is similar to other sausages. You can directly saute, grill, or broil, but you can also boil in a small amount of liquid (usually water) in a sautee pan until the liquid boils out, then you finish off by sauteeing the sausage. No need to add oil as the fat of the meat will grease the pan (if theres casing, prick the skin to let the fat out). Cooking it in liquid first is the popular method in the Philippines.

Longganisa is popular with rice, but it makes a great sandwich too. And you can slice it and add it to dry noodles or serve it by itself like tapas and wash it down with cold beer.

[PPPans]

Longganisa is from the Spanish longaniza that's why they also have it in South America. I think they pronounce it 'long-a-niza' unlike the Filipino adaptation with a hard 'g'.

On another forum they have a discussion on the difference between longaniza and chorizo. It might be worth reading, if you're interested.

[tristar]

Richard/Tristar - Here you go...

Chicken Longganisa

1 kg ground chicken

2.5 tbsp salt

1.5 tbsp sugar

1.5 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp wine

2 tsp pepper

2 tbsp garlic

sausage casing

Mix everything, case (or shape into patties or fingers for skinless longganisa), and cure for 5 to 6 days.

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Many thanks Doddie,

My apologies for the belated 'Thank You', I cannot believe that I missed your reply to my request until now! Just one point, when you say 'cured' I assume that you mean under refrigeration, and not at room temperature? I have to ask as I have just recently made a batch of Balinese Style sausages which were actually cured and dried at ambient temperatures and humidities varying between 25-32 degrees C and RH about 75%.

Regards,

[Domestic Goddess]

Richard, no worries. You are right about curing inside the refrigerator (for the skinless/wax paper wrapped longganisa). Longganisa stuffed in casings can be cured outside the refrigerator, hung in a cool, dry place.

[tristar]

Richard, no worries. You are right about curing inside the refrigerator (for the skinless/wax paper wrapped longganisa). Longganisa stuffed in casings can be cured outside the refrigerator, hung in a cool, dry place.

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Don't have many cool, dry places in Jakarta at the moment! I think for safety sake I will treat them like a pepperoni and dry them in my fridge. The Urutan (Balinese style sausage) I recently dried in the ambient conditions really suprised me by not going sour but they used a lot of fresh root spices, ginger, galangal, lesser galangal, turmeric and garlic, which I believe have anti fungal and anti bacterial properties!

I look forward to trying them when I get home in a months time.

Thanks again.

[Nathan_Lim]

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!