RECIPE: REC: Lao Sausage from my favorite butcher, Ryan Farr, 4505 Meats

RECIPE:

heather_in_sf

Well-known member
I love this guy, his sausages are amazing. I have some of his persimmon sausages in the freezer, looking for a good home as I can't eat persimmons (weeps).

Lao Sausage

Recipe adapted from Ryan Farr, "Sausage Making: The Definitive Guide" (Chronicle)

Yield: 3 pounds sausage, about 7 (6-inch) links

Prep Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Cook Time: About 45 minutes

Total Time: 2½ hours

INGREDIENTS

1¾ pounds boneless pork shoulder (or other 75% lean pork cut), diced into 1-inch cubes

13 ounces boneless pork loin, diced into 1-inch cubes

⅓ cup medium diced (½-inch) bacon

2¼ teaspoons fine sea salt, plus more as needed

1 tablespoon plus ¾ teaspoon ice water

1½ teaspoons finely chopped fresh mint

1½ teaspoons finely chopped fresh basil

1½ teaspoons minced lemongrass (from the bottom 3 inches of a stalk)

1½ teaspoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

1½ teaspoons peeled and minced galangal

1½ teaspoons minced shallot

1½ teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon fish sauce

¾ teaspoon minced Makrut (kaffir) lime leaves

¾ teaspoon minced Thai chile

Freshly ground black pepper

Hog casings (about 8 feet)

Vegetable oil, for cooking

Butter, for basting

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the pork shoulder, pork loin and bacon on a rimmed baking sheet and chill in the freezer until crunchy on the exterior but not frozen solid, about 1½ hours.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together the salt, ice water, mint, basil, lemongrass, cilantro, galangal, shallot, garlic, fish sauce, lime leaf and Thai chile until combined.

3. Nest a large empty mixing bowl in a bowl filled with ice and a little water. Using the small die of a meat grinder, grind the pork and bacon into the bowl set on ice.

4. Add the spice mixture to the ground pork and stir with your hands until well incorporated; the mixture should become homogenous and begin sticking to the side of the bowl.

5. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture into a nonstick frying pan and spread into a thin patty. Cook the test patty over low heat until no longer pink. Taste the sausage, adding more salt and pepper as needed to the raw ground meat mixture. Cook a second test patty if needed.

6. Remove the bowl with the ground meat mixture from the ice bath. Press a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap directly on the surface of the meat to prevent oxidation, then cover the bowl tightly with another piece of plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

7. Rinse the hog casings well in cold running water to remove the salt. Place in a bowl and cover with cold water. Refrigerate overnight.

8. The next day, stuff the sausages into the casings: hold one end of a piece of hog casing up to the sink faucet nozzle and support it with your other hand. Gently turn on the water and let it run through the casings to rinse them and check for holes. (If there are any holes in the casings, cut out the pieces with holes.) Hold the casings in a bowl of cold water and refrigerate until ready to use.

9. Load the sausage mixture into a sausage stuffer, compressing it gently to remove air bubbles. Have ready a sausage pricker (a pin works, too) and a bowl of water. Moisten the nozzle of the sausage stuffer with water, and then load the casings onto the nozzle, keeping them straight and taking care not to double them up. Crank or turn on the stuffer and, when the meat just starts to come out of the nozzle, stop stuffing. Pull 4 to 5 inches of casing off the end of the nozzle but don't knot it. Moisten your work surface with water to prevent the sausages from sticking. With one hand, crank or turn on the sausage stuffer. Once the sausage mixture starts to fill the casing, remove the air by pinching and tying a knot at the end of the casing. Keep your free hand on the casing as the sausage fills. (If you see air pockets, prick the casing with the pricker (or pin). If the casing splits, cut the damaged bit of casing and discard. Reserve the sausage mixture that burst and add it back to the stuffer. Once stuffed, knot the end of the sausage rope.

10. Pinch the sausage about 6 inches from the end to make your first link and twist the link forward and around for about seven rotations. Form the second link; this time, pinch firmly and twist it backward. Repeat this process, alternating forward and backward, until you reach the open end of the casing. Twist the open end right at the last bit of filling to seal off the whole coil, and then tie a knot. It's best to refrigerate the links overnight before cooking.

11. To cook, separate the links from one another by cutting them where you twisted the casings. Set a large heavy skillet over medium heat and add a film of oil. When the pan is hot, add the sausages and brown on all sides. Once browned, add a few tablespoons of butter to the pan and continue to cook, basting the sausages with the hot fat to help them cook on all sides, until an instant-read thermometer reads 145° when inserted into the thickest part, about 30-35 minutes total. (Do not cut into them to determine doneness.) Alternatively you can cook them on a grill, first over direct heat until browned, then move them to more indirect heat until cooked through.

http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/chefs_recipes/16317

 
Question for sausage makers about FAT.

(Amazing...I have EVERYTHING on this list (well, I have powdered galangal)and I'm not on first name basis with my kaffir leaves, but I've got them! Plus I have hog casings packed in salt in the freezer, just waiting to be used. I see Lao sausage in my future!)

Okay, Sausage Makers! How do you deal with the fat percentages? The few times I've made my FIL's recipe, I've cut ever bit of fat off of the meat, THEN weighted out 70% meat cubes and 30% fat cubes. Other times, I used 60% meat: 40% fat. Then I grind it back together.

Is that how it's done? Or do you just cube the meat "as is" and weight it out, taking whatever you get? Because sometimes there are whole stratas of fat with no visible meat.

 
I once read somewhere (long time ago) that good sausage needed at least 30% fat to stay juicy. . .

and so (I read a long time ago) pork shoulder (which at the time was definitely more fatty than now) was a good cut to use for basic sausages for the home cook. But now, pigs are a LOT more lean than 30 years ago. . .

I say at least 30% fat, depending on the grind. Lately I have had sausages, ground in-house at local markets that were so lean as to be dry and gritty when cooked; I think they were grinding meat that was wayyyyy too lean, or not measuring the fat to lean as you are. PLUS I feel those sausage makers using a much too fine grind for their meat. Dry, gritty, no texture--do these people even taste the recipes they are using? I don't think so.

How does your sausage taste at 30% fat versus 40% fat? I vote for whatever tastes good! I say that grinding it as you do gives you better control on the fat-to-meat ratio and thus is better for flavor overall.

I'd invite myself to your place to help make the Lao sausage (and eat the Lao Sausage, of course--I would offer to bring pork, of course!), but you are just a leetle bit far away for that. smileys/smile.gif

Please let us here how your Lao Sausage tastes--the recipe sounds delicious.

 
I've watched Ryan's demos before and other sausage makers and they

weigh out the meat, which has intrinsic fat, and then add more fat, so they add the 30% in the form of bacon or fatback or trimmings. Love those trimmings.

I want to make these but have to wait a bit as I just bought his meat CSA bag and my freezer is bursting. I would make these less spicy as I have a low tolerance these days to heat.

 
I mention this because I can eat cooked/frozen apples etc that I'm allergic too when they're raw

 
I've always heard AT LEAST 30% fat. I trim what fat I can then usually suppliment

with fatback, which I can get fairly easily at the Asian markets here.

 
Thanks for all the comments. My FIL's sausage is "missing" something.

I suspect he had better pork 35 years ago. I'm pretty sure he used pork butt.
Perhaps I didn't break down his spice blend for 15 lb & 17 lb recipe correctly (to make 3 pounds for us)
I know he used a preservative called Supreme that I can't find anywhere. I have to wonder if that impacts the flavor like MSG would.

I can't remember seeing him separate the fat from the meat, but maybe being a butcher he could just eyeball the mix and know it was good enough.

 
Pork was definitely fatter back in the day. And pigs were raised much larger.

I once went to a seminar with Mario Batali's dad on the panel. He owns a famous charcuterie shop. He said if he knew anyone raising pigs over 300 pounds, he wanted to know about it! If I understand right, it takes about 3 years to raise a pig that large. These days, I think a typical life span is more like 1 1/2 years. Maybe 2 if you're lucky.

According to the USDA site, "Farrow-to-finish operations raise hogs from birth to slaughter weight, about 240-270 pounds."

 
PS. I've been collecting sausage recipes for years. If you want to share what you've got, I might

have a modern version that's similar.

 
Thanks Traca. I've wondered why we never had roasted pork shoulders when I was a kid. The

shoulders were always turned into sausage. They were probably way to fatty to cook as a roast. I just didn't connect the dots until I read your post. As best as I can remember we seldom saw shoulders sold whole the way they are now until perhaps late 70s or even 80s. Also spareribs were so fatty back then. I think both those cuts are much better from the leaner pigs. But not the pork chops! I remember them being so good.

 
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