Hmong Sausage

Originally, I was going to make these simple ground beef meatballs with green onions--the kind that my dad used to make for us when we were young. He wasn't the best cook. He basically just cooked food that was good enough for him. I would never eat anything he cooked except for these beef meatballs that he would make. They were just plain ground beef with green onions and then pan fried. Making them again brings back memories and it would make me miss my dad more than usual. I think about the times when he would save a piece of fruit for me because none of my siblings cared for fruit, but he knew that I always loved fruits. After he passed away, just cutting into a piece of fruit would remind me of my dad and how much he loved us.

"Enjoy the little things in life, for someday you will realize they were the big things." - Unknown

Besides making these beef meatballs, I also decided to make Hmong sausages for the first time. I had no recipe to go by, except for the ingredients on the package some Hmong sausages that I recently bought and to what I thought it tasted like. For a first try, it really wasn't that bad. I was so impressed that it tasted just like the sausages I bought except everything was freshly made. I meant to write down the measurements, but totally forgot, so the measurements are not accurate as to what I attempted. The hog casings were easier to find than I thought. They were in the freezer section at my local grocery store; although I had to ask for help. I also read that using pork butt or pork shoulder was the best to make sausage. It has a good amount of meat and fat in it, but you can certainly combine whatever meat portions you like.

Makes about a foot of sausage:

Ingredients (again, these are approximate ingredients since I did not write them down except for the pork. I do remember measuring that.):

Hog casing
1 lb of pork shoulder, chopped or grinded
1/4 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup green onions,finely chopped
2 tbsp ginger, minced
2 tbsp lemon grass, white part only, minced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 tbsp shallots, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp Thai chili peppers, finely chopped
1 tbsp of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of sugar

Package of hog casing found at local grocery store:

Soak the casings in water for about 30 minutes to get rid of the salt. Boy, did these look weird when I first saw them. They do expand:

Clean casing by flushing it with water:

Cut up the meat to get it ready for chopping or grinding:

My food processor did not grind raw meat well, so I ended up manually chopping the meat with the Hmong knife that my mom gave me. It's a Hmong knife because it had rust all over!

These are the herbs I used to make sausage. I forgot to measure these exactly, but I did not use all the ginger pictured here. I remember that I used about 1 tablespoon of peppers and the sausage came out pretty hot, so I would advise to use half of that. Of course the peppers are optional if you don't like it hot:

Mix the meat, herbs, fish sauce, salt and sugar together. Also use gloves to mix and stuff this because the hot peppers will burn your hand. Also, at this point you want to take a small piece and form it into a pattie and pan fry until cooked to see how you like it. Adjust any seasonings per your taste.

Tie one end of the casing to start your stuffing from the opposite end:

I cut up a plastic bottle of soda and used the nozzle as my stuffing tool. Simply wrap the casing around the nozzle and stuff the meat through. I ended up cutting the plastic down more than the picture below to make it easier and faster to stuff (almost down to the nozzle):

Finished stuffed sausage. I did over stuff mine, so try not to over stuff it because when you cook it, the casing will break as mine partially did:

I did not store mine overnight. You can certainly do so if you like. I made these on another occasion and the flavorings still tasted the same to me when I cooked it right away. How I cooked these were by broiling them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. I wanted them more brown and crispy, so I ended up pan frying them for about 5-10 minutes. After I made these, I found some more references on making Laotian sausage. The difference I have seen with Laotian sausage vs. Hmong sausage is that the Laotian brand is made with sticky rice, lemongrass, garlic and green onions. Many I've seen did not have cilantro or ginger in it. I haven't tried this recipe yet, but here is one of the recipes I found from Laocook:

Here is the basic recipe for our version of the Lao Style Sausage. The fat to meat ratio is very important, we use 1:5, but it is all down to personal taste. This recipe will produce about 3kg.

2kg Coarse Minced Pork Neck
400g Coarse Minced Pork fat
20g Chopped Coriander Stems (Cilantro)
100g Finely Diced Shallot
10g Chopped Garlic
50g Chopped Spring Onion (Scallions)
7 Finely chopped Lime Leaves
70g Finely Chopped Dill
50g Red Chilli Paste (we make our own, but you can use Red Thai Curry Paste)
150g Finely Diced Red Pepper
50g Chopped Lemon Grass, white part only
5g White Pepper
3tbsp Fish Sauce
3tbsp Soy Sauce
3tbsp Oyster Sauce
40g Salt
15g Sugar
3 Eggs
100g Corn Flour (used to help bind the ingredients)

Natural casings

Mix all the ingredients except the Natural Casings. Allow the ingredients get to know each other by placing them in a covered container overnight.

The following day taste the mixture by taking a small amount and shaping it in to a burger and frying it. Adjust seasoning to your personal taste then stuff in to the Natural Casings and shape as required. Make sure to use a pin to puncture the skin at intervals to allow air to escape.


NOTES:
We find them best cooked in an oven set to around 150ºC for around 15 minutes.

They can also be steamed, then browned in a hot pan for colouring.

Some versions of these sausages appear more “red”. For this you can add a few teaspoons of Paprika Powder to the mix.

*****

Nam Khao (Laotian Fried Rice Ball Salad)

I've been meaning to post this a while back because I wanted to show step-by-step photos, but just haven't made this dish in a while. I first discovered this dish from a member of a forum and tried the recipe he/she had given. I wasn't that pleased with it, so I never bothered looking up other recipes. One day at the local Asian store, it sold a to-go package of this dish and I grabbed it. It was love-at-first-bite. Nam Khao is one of my favorite dishes now and the best new dish I have discovered in 2010. To me, it is that good, but it does require some acquired tasting. For example, if you don't like nam sausauge, then you might not like this dish, but you can certainly make it without it. The reason why the store-bought version was so much better than the original recipe I had tried earlier was because the original recipe was baked and not fried. It also did not include coconut flakes in the recipe. Those two things made a huge difference. This dish has to be deep fried or it won't taste the same.

This is a great dish to make when you have a lot of leftover rice and want to try something new besides regular fried rice. If you like the exotic tastes of Thai and Laotian, you will love this dish. I did anyway.

Here is a good tutorial online. I adapted my recipe from hers. For example, I used freshly fried shallots and garlic and threw it in the dish. I also added sugar since the one at the store tasted a little sweeter. I did not add any ground meat to the dish. I thought the nam sausage provided enough meat already. And I never use MSG in any of my foods. Some recipes call for curry, but I did not like that in mine. I also made my rice balls larger, so the rice wouldn't be as crispy (hard) all over. Some people like more of the hard rice, but I didn't want too much of that. One of these days, I'll post my exact recipe, but give this recipe a try first.

I made these the other day on a whim, and didn't turn out exactly like how I made them when I took the time, but here are photos to give you some ideas:

Chicken Laab

Laab reminds me of the gatherings that my family and other Hmong families used to have when I was growing up. A cow or pig would be sacrificed in the early morning at a butcher shop or farm, and then a bunch of relatives would come over and help cook the meat into many different dishes. One of those dishes was usually laab or larb, however it's spelled. The men were the ones who always made the laab. I should've paid attention growing up because I don't know how to make laab as good as I had it back then. I haven't attended any of those Hmong gatherings in a long time. I'm not a bad daughter-in-law. At least I don't think I am. LOL I'm just not the traditional type, and luckily, my husband isn't either, so we rarely go to these events unless it's in our first family. I just remember two key ingredients that the cooks used and they were lime leaves and roasted rice powder. Since I don't live in St. Paul anymore, I don't have access to the wide variety of herbs and veggies usually available in the Cities, so I didn't get any lime leaves. I used lemongrass in this recipe instead and it worked fine.

Laab is generally a healthy dish, since it is made with the leanest parts of the meat. My version is even healthier because it's made with baked chicken breasts and the rest of the ingredients are pretty low in calories as well. Growing up, we mostly had beef laab and sometimes pork laab. I always liked the white meat laab more. There are many versions of laab, but I don't like it when laab is made into a bitter dish (with some gross ingredients IMO). It's even made raw and I never eat it that way. Laab is meant to be eaten room temperature or even cold and served with greens such as lettuce and of course rice.

Ingredients
3 chicken breasts (about 3 cups once chopped)
1/3 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
1/3 cup of green onions, finely chopped
1/4 cup of mint leaves, finely chopped
1/4 cup of lemongrass (white part only), finely chopped
1 tbsp of chopped fresh or frozen Thai chilli peppers

2 1/2 tbsp of fish sauce
2 tbsp of fresh lime juice
1 tbsp of roasted rice powder

Optional: 1/4 cup of shallots, finely chopped
Note: shallots or onions weren't typically used in Hmong laab, but since I had a bunch around I added it and it added a nice flavor

Method:
1. Bake chicken breasts in oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside.
2. Meanwhile, prepare (chop) fresh herbs.

3. Once chicken is cooked, slice the chicken into large chunks and put into a food processor to chop or chop chicken manually.

I actually over chopped my meat with the food processor. Generally, the meat shouldn't be as fine as this, but it still tasted good to me.

4. Add all the fresh ingredients except the chillies to the chicken. Mix well. Add the rice powder, then add the fish sauce, lime juice and chillies slowly (1 tbsp at a time or 1 tsp of the chillies at a time) to adjust to your liking. I am just listing what I used exactly and that's how I liked it. You may like yours less salty, sour, or hot. Make sure to stir everything well.


This is the rice powder I used (found at the Asian markets). You can make your own by roasting dry rice kernels in a frying pan until brown, and process it in a processor until it turns into a fine powder (or use a mortar and pestle to ground). Just make sure you don't burn the rice.


5. Put laab on a serving plate on top of some lettuce as presentation. I used red leaf lettuce because I like it, and the more color, the better for your health. Serve with an additional side of lettuce and a bowl of rice.

Papaya Salad

Papaya salad is definitely one of my favorite foods, it's at least on my top five list. I have to eat papaya salad at least every month. If it wasn't for the high salt content, this dish would be very healthy and I would eat it every week. I have never tasted consistent papaya salad, even from the best papaya salad maker. It always tastes different no matter how many times I have made it or when someone else makes it. I think it's because when this dish is made, the ingredients are just added as needed and rarely measured, so it's always different. A small amount of one ingredient will change this dish drastically. This is the first time I measured it and it turned out pretty good. I like to make my papaya salad "Thai" style with just a few extras. It is much more simple and does not involve a lot of the other ingredients.






Just use a teeny bit of shrimp paste as you see here. Too much will make the salad bitter:






Serves 1

Ingredients:
1/2 clove of garlic
1-2 Thai chili peppers, depending on taste
1 tbsp of roasted peanuts
1 tsp tamarind
1 tsp palm sugar
shrimp paste (see picture)
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tbsp lime juice
1 cup of shredded green papaya
4 cherry tomatoes, halved

Method:
1. Put garlic and Thai chili peppers to mortar. With pestle, smash the ingredients together until nicely blended so flavors mix.
2. Add the tamarind, palm sugar and shrimp paste. Pound with pestle until well blended with the other ingredients. Note: I shredded the palm sugar pictured above with a shredder to yield 1 tsp. I like to use the tamarind pictured above because it has a fresher taste than the already made tamarind mix that you find in the Asian stores.
3. Add the roasted peanuts, pound until well grounded.
4. Add the fish sauce and lime juice. Mix well with a spoon with the other ingredients.
5. Add the papaya and cherry tomatoes to the mix. With one hand holding a spoon and the other with the pestle, toss and pound all the ingredients together until well mixed and tomatoes are smashed. You do not want to pound the papaya too much as you want the papaya to have some crisp, but you do want it a little smashed so that the papaya will absorb the juices from all the other ingredients.


(Click on image for larger view.)

I ate mine with leftover salmon and rice I made last night. Papaya salad is usually served with cabbage. You would take a piece of cabbage leaf and use it as a spoon to scoop up some papaya salad into it and enjoy. The cabbage gives a nice crunch to the salad.