Okay, so December happened. Nobody wanted it to go that way, but it did, despite our best efforts. My deepest and most sincere apologies. Lets get back to this yeah?
This one is pretty heavy on the close ups of pig intestines and ground pork, so if you are opposed to those things maybe check back later in the week. I'm doing a thing with booze and a new camera that should be less...violent. This recipe was adapted from this Bon Appetit piece. I saw the video and thought, yeah, that looks easy, invited my friend Ryan over to assist, and got to work. This was worlds harder than the video makes it out to be, but we learned a lot and hopefully this post will make things smoother if you ever want to give it a go yourself. The recipe itself isn't the focus of this post though, this is much more about the details of the process that the video above leaves out.
1 3/4 cups finely minced lemongrass
1/2 cup kaffir lime zest
1 cup red curry paste
3/4 cup finely sliced kaffir lime leaves
1/2 pound salted pork belly
5 pounds ground pork
3/4 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup ground, roasted red chiles
Natural pork casings
Most of these ingredients you will find at your local Asian market, save for the pork casings. I'm fortunate enough to live in a town that has a thriving food culture, so at our local supermarket The Nugget had fresh casings on hand for pretty damn cheap.
We started by chopping the pork belly in the smallest pieces possible. Ours came with a bit of skin still attached, if that is the case just slice it off and get to chopping.
The next up would be the lemongrass. I had only worked with lemongrass in soups before, where you can toss pretty much all of it in. For this application, however, we want the lighter bulb section at the bottom of the stalk, which is substantially less fibrous. I like to cut it into rounds and then just go crazy on it, chopping it as small as I could get it.
Next we ground the lemongrass and lime zest as finely as possible in a mortar and pestle. If you don't have a mortar and pestle you are dumb and should use your boring-ass blender.
After the lemongrass mixture is starting to get paste-y, add the curry paste and continue to mix.
I chopped the kaffir lime leaves using a chiffonade initially, but decided the cuts were a bit too long and wouldn't work well in this application. I recommend chopping much more fine than this.
In a large bowl, mix the pork fat with the ground pork with your hands. YOUR HANDS! Feels wonderful. Believe, believe. Then add the curry/lemongrass paste and combine. Toss in the sugar, fish sauce, red peppers, and lime leaves. This photo is about half empty, five pounds of pork actually looks a lot more full.
This next step is absolutely crucial and can't be skipped. scoop up about a quarter cup, form into a patty, and saute it real quickly in a pan. If you are making this many sausages, you want them to taste good, don't you? Of course you do. It would be a shame if you didn't like how they taste after you've already got two dozen of the bastards.
Taste and re-season as necessary. Once you are happy with the way the meat is tasting, now we can get to the tricky part. The casings from The Nugget came wet, which is apparently pretty rare. Measure out a foot of casings and cut. We experimented with longer portions and stuffing then cutting, but it just worked better if you did one sausage at a time. Tie a knot in one end of the casings.
Next squeeze all of the air out of the casings. You are going to learn really quickly here that air is the enemy.
Next insert a Chinese soup spoon into the open end of the casing, with the handle of the spoon first. This next tip is skipped over in the video above pretty hard, which is why I thought this whole post necessary (side note, but I watched that goddamned video about a dozen times with my hands covered in pig and when he says "That's all there is to it!" like the smug son of a bitch he is I wanted to throw my computer. On some level he knew he was glossing over the hardest fucking part, you can just tell). You see how Ryan rolled the end of the casing back over his index finger? That is a really big fucking deal. If you don't do that you wont be able to keep the casing open far enough to get anything done.
Next start shoveling meat into that fucker, and I do mean shoveling. If you try to gingerly get every last bit into the casing every damn time, you will hate yourself. Just use your hand that isn't holding the casing open to grab a small fistful of meat, toss that shit on the spoon, and start shoving.
We laid down some parchment paper which made it easy to scoop up the droppings and toss them back in the bowl. Once you have about two or three inches worth in the casing, squeeze it down the tube to the bottom, being careful not to break the knot at the bottom. It happens, and when it does, you will be very, very angry.
Once you have about 7 or 8 inches in the casing, lay it flat on the counter. Starting at the tied end, run your hand towards the top, using a bit of pressure. This will force all those bastardy air bubbles out of the top. Once it looks better, reform it back into a circular shape.
Once that is done, its a simple matter of tying the casing off and trimming the ends. This will make about 20 sausages and five ugly little bastards that you don't want to serve to anyone so just cook them up right after. I like to do them on low for about 15 minutes, turning every three minutes or so, then turning it up to high for the last turn.
