Grandma's Sausages
Our family cookbook wouldn't be complete without a recipe from our queen bee, Grandma, or “Ah Ma," as I called her. Being the only grandparent of mine who survived the Cambodian Genocide to immigrate to the US, Ah Ma lived until she was 94 and was the matriarch of our family.
When I think of her, so many tactile memories come to mind - the feeling of her hands intently holding and feeling mine to figure out who I was, when her sight & hearing had gone. The occasional glimpse of her long white hair that flowed below her waistline, let down only after a shower, so she could comb and pin it into her signature low bun. The sound of her voice, when she’d call out, “Fan Lay!” shouting out the front door, telling us to come home. But one of my most favorite memories is the taste of her sweet lap cheong, served with a warm bowl of "jok" or rice porridge.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to document her sausage recipe before her passing, but this recipe is one that my father and I pieced together, part from memory and part from calling up different family members for tips and advice. It’s not the exact way Ah Ma used to make it, especially since she did everything by hand, but the flavor and the essence is there.
Born in Dongguan, China in the 1920s, Ah Ma immigrated to Cambodia in her late teens to escape the Chinese Civil War. She didn’t do too much cooking, but this was one of her staples. We’re not sure who she learned how to make these sausages from, but the style is from her hometown in Southern China.
She sold this in Mongkol Borey, Cambodia out of their home, where my father grew up. Dad says Ah Ma had regular customers and was known for her sausages, with folks traveling from Vietnam or Thailand to stop to pick them up. When I traveled to Cambodia with my cousins in 2017, we visited Ah Ma's old house, and I was surprised to see sausages hanging from a food cart at the corner of the street, and they looked just like hers.
In the mid 70s, there was initial talk about a communist revolution in Cambodia, so most of my dad's family decided to relocate from Mongkol Berey to Battambang, hoping they would be safer in a bigger city. For 3 months, before the Khmer Rouge officially overtook the government, my father and Aunt Bay were left to watch the house and worked together to make and sell Grandma’s sausages.
After immigrating to California, Ah Ma continued making them by hand, hanging them on the clothesline to dry in the backyard. I always thought her sausages tasted different from other Chinese "lap cheong" and so much better than the ones we bought at the store. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to work on this with my dad and to be sharing it with you now.
Ingredients
5 lbs of pork (1/2 pork belly 1/2 pork shoulder)
1/2 cup of Pernod liquer
1/2 cup of rice win
2” piece of ginger
6 tbsp of sugar (1/3 of a cup)
1 tbsp of salt
1/4 cup of soy sauce (an even mix of double fermented dark soy sauce, Maggi seasoning, and Golden Mountain soy sauce)
1 hank of pork casing
Kitchenware
Sausage stuffer
9.5 mm sausage stuffer
Sausage pricker or sewing needles
Twine
Mortar and pestle
And somewhere to hang the sausages outside and indoors
Instructions
Making the sausage:
Rinse out your pork casing under cold water to remove the salt. Soak in hot water for at least 30 mins.
Cut your pork belly into 1/4” cubes. Season with 3 tbsp of sugar, mixing well. Let sit in the fridge while you cut your pork shoulder.
Cut pork shoulder into 1/4” cubes.
Slice ginger and use a mortar and pestle to mash the ginger. Add a cup of rice wine, using your hands to squeeze the juice out of the ginger. Strain rice wine.
Add rice wine, soy sauce, salt, Pernod liquer, and remaining sugar to pork shoulder. Add pork belly and pork shoulder together, and mix well.
Marinate the meat covered in the fridge for 30 mins
Meanwhile, prepare your sausage stuffer. Cut your twine into (30) 4” pieces (long enough to tie your sausage).
When ready, string your pork casing on the sausage stuffer and tie the end. Begin feeding the meat into the casing, making sure the sausage is not more than 1.5” thick, a little thinner every 4” or so, where you’ll be tying the sausage. As you're filling the casing, you'll need to use your hands to pull the casing off of the filling tube, squeezing and guiding the meat along, so it's a consistent diameter throughout. Try to fill lesser amounts every 4" to allow for some room when you tie the sausage into pieces.
Once you’ve filled your casing, tie the end.
Use the twine to pinch and tie the sausages at 4” intervals. Double knot for extra security.
Quickly dip your sausages in warm water to rinse them off, shaking off excess water.
Lay your sausages in a pan or on the counter, and begin poking holes with your sausage pricker. If you don’t have a sausage pricker, a few sewing needles will work too, though you’ll have to poke the sausage about 20 times all around. This allows some air to be released, so your sausage doesn’t balloon and pop.
Hang your sausages to air dry for 2 days. During the day, put it outside under the sun. During the night, bring it inside.
Refrigerate if you are going to cook and eat them within 1-2 days.
Freeze sausages for up to 3 months.
Cooking the sausage:
Boil sausages for 2 minutes
Deep fry in vegetable or canola oil for 5-6 minutes in a small saucepan. It's important to use a small saucepan to ensure the sausages can be well submerged in the oil. Keep the heat on low-medium once the oil was ready. Rotate often and watch the skin to make sure it doesn't get too burnt.
Once cooked, slice sausage and serve with rice porridge, white rice, or in any other way you prefer.
Tips
Air Drying:
To speed up the process, you can blow an electric fan towards the sausages while it’s drying indoors at night
Pork Meat:
When selecting your pork meat, if your pork shoulder is already pretty fatty, you can cut down on the amount of pork belly and increase the amount of pork shoulder
Instead of pork belly, you can also use pork back fat.
Recipe in Honor of Ah Ma / Grandma
1980
Thai Refugee Camp
My Uncle's wedding
After the family had survived 4 years of Khmer Rouge atrocities
Ah Ma sits in the center
1981
Stepping off the plane, the family's arrival in the U.S. Ah Ma is smiling on the left.
1983
In front of the Old House, our first home purchased in America
Ah Ma sits in center, as customary in all family photos
With this recipe being extra special, I knew a simple narrative would not be enough. And so, in hopes of encompassing who she was...I turned to poetry.
Ah Ma
A small black comb,
Sits in her shirt pocket
To the right of her womb
Which has birthed 10 children
My aunts and uncles
The branches
Of a strongly rooted tree
The comb
It smooths out her white strands
Pulled neatly into a small bun at the nape of her neck
When let down,
the thinning tresses
fall long down her back,
reaching towards the earth
She sits in the same chair
A glimpse of her
The moment you walk into
The Old House
Come sit with me
You sit with her
Did you eat yet?
Always the first
The most important
And she holds both of your hands
and feels for who you are
You speak loudly and closely to her face
But it’s not sight nor sound
Which tells her your identity
The touch, the feel of your hands
That’s how she’s seeing you
The jade bracelet on her wrist
Like the name she gave you
Love Jade, Ai Yu
Brushes against your skin
Her Skin
Covered in spots soaked with decades of sun
In between those wrinkled lines
There are so many stories untold
Weathered
Like the sausages that hang on the clothes line
In our backyard
Hung with red yarn
The sweet flavor imbued
In sun weathered skin
You’ll never forget it
Nothing compares
To the taste
Of Ah Ma’s lap cheong
In her final days
She knows the light is drawing closer
So she gathers her children
No longer children are they
She reminds them
Always stay together
Don’t let anything get in between family
You must always remain close
Closing her time on earth
Continuing on through us
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