If youâre English (or German) and living in China, then there will come a time when you just have to wonder where can you get a decent sausage from. This is the best, most Chinese shops will offer you:
Now there are a few things wrong with this sausage:
1. Who knows what meat is in there and if it is in fact meat
2. Donât know about you but it is by far too skinny to satisfy my sausage needs
3. Finally and most importantly, these Chinese sausages are always slightly sweet.. which makes me more angry than it should.
One weekend, my friend and I finally had enough of this sweet hot doggery and decided to make our own bad ass british sozzies!
Our journey started in the local supermarket and chose a decent slab of pork with not much fat on it. Once chosen you just need to ask for ârou xian(r)â this will prompt the butcher to mince your meat.
With your soft minced meat firmly in hand you will then need to hot step yourself to a bakery to get your hands on some French baguettes (the exact amounts of all these ingredients will be at the bottom of this blog).
Now you have an important decision to make.. what flavour sausages are you going for? If itâs just plain pig that floats your boat then youâre good to go, if youâre like me and want to taste England then you will need to acquire some leeks and garlic, Pork and leek = happy for a week.
You could dance with the devil and throw some Chilli and paprika in there with your swine or you could go olde country and even chuck some apples in the mix!
My recipe will be for the leeky inclined.
To the batcave! As you probably wonât be able to get stale baguettes, you will need to dry your bread out before blending it.. the easiest way is to cut it into slices and pop it under your grill for a few minutes. If you donât have a grill or oven then you will need to stale your bread the usual way⊠wait until stale.
Blend your dry slices until it turns to breadcrumbs.
Next you want to chop and lightly fry your leeks and garlic for 5 minutes then pop them in the blender to mince them.
Now, along with a healthy dousing of parsley, salt, pepper, ginger, elbow grease and love, you are ready to mix all the things together with your meat in a big bowl.
If you aint too hungry then the best thing to do now is to leave your mix to rest for a few hours⊠I know you want youâre sausages but youâre just gonna have to wait, im sorry.
Once rested, take your bowl along to your nearest butcher/market and find someone who looks like they make sausages. Flash your pearly whites and ask them nicely if they will help you make some sausages, saying something like âni hao, ni keyi bang wo zuo xiang chang ma?â.. âwo gei ni er shi kuai, hao bu hao?â đ   I threw in that bit about 20rmb to sweeten the deal.
Now is a good time to look away whilst they get the innard linings out and load the sausage machine. Just amuse yourself by browsing the oddities of a Chinese butcher.. the pig faces, ox tails and other bits and pieces I cannot even discern.
Now that you have your sausages you should be feeling pretty proud of yourself right about now, and so you should. Youâve just managed to make about 10 huge sausages for just a few pounds.
It is said that you should now let these sausages to rest in the fridge overnight but lets face it, youâve got enough sausages for breakfast and dinner for the next 2 weeks.. overnight isnât gonna make a huge difference.. fire up the pan and get frying!
If you donât fancy a sausage a day then bag them up and put them in your freezer for a rainy day.
Enjoy!
p.s the only downside to this method is that the sausage maker that the butcher uses has been used to process the dried Chinese meat that they use in their sausages.. which can add a funky aftertaste to your Queens finest sausages. The way around this is to buy your own sausage maker⊠this may sound ridiculous but on Taobao you can pick one up for around 7 euros! Well worth it IMO!
The recipe for Jackâs big sausages â
900g Pork
1 baguettes worth of Bread crumbs or around 50g of bread crumbs
1 clove of garlic
2-3 leeks depending on how leeky youre feeling đ
1 tbsp salt
A good amount of black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
A decent amount of parsley and some basil if youâre feeling frisky
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