phở đuôi bò | oxtail noodle soup

Making breakfast magic with some pasture-raised oxtail and organic spices...

I completely forgot to get any herbs or steak but it was delish nonetheless.

My real food, real phở recipe over here.

Social history of phở over here.

Phở-natic confessions here.

Dijon Vinaigrette Coleslaw & Jamaican Jerk ribs

I have never particularly liked coleslaw growing up. I really despised the one that we'd often get at KFC.  I think it was the creamy-sweetness that turned me off. Maybe this is because Viet coleslaws are not creamy. At any rate, this all changed back in my wheat eating days when my good friend Tuyen introduced me to Bakesale Betty's unholy fried chicken sandwich which was made with a vinaigrette-based coleslaw. It's damn good. I'd pick out all the onions because I was allergic to raw onions back then (the sulfur).  But it opened up my culinary world to non-Viet, non-creamy coleslaws.

It's grilling weather so I picked up some nice country ribs (butt) from Whole Foods; this is a flavorful fatty cut from sustainably raised pork and in the bulk pack (3 lbs+) it's a reasonably priced $4.99/lb comparable to what one would get buying direct from the farmer.  I used a Jamaican Jerk recipe from Bruce Aidell's Complete Book of Pork; I make it mild because my kid doesn't like spicy and we serve with organic habanero sauce on the side.

My favorite coleslaw recipe hands down is Jeremy Fox's Apple Savoy Cabbage which I make with organic fuji apples; for whatever reason, organic apples have been hard to come by this year.  So sans apples, I had to do something different.  I threw this coleslaw together because I happened to have a savoy cabbage in the fridge from a few weeks back.  The coleslaw perfectly complemented the Jamaican Jerk ribs.  

I like savoy cabbage because it is thinner leaves which soften quicker meaning that you can eat it sooner, more digestible.  I toss the shredded cabbage with grey sea salt similar to how one would prepare cabbage for fermenting (sauerkraut or kimchi).  The salt begins to break down the tough cellulose in the cabbage, making it more digestible.  I use the America's Test Kitchen method of shredding (see which ensures you don't end up with large sections of rib.

I recently started using estate grown organic certified olive oil direct from the farmer, because I boycott the mafia (also why I never ate at Phở Hoà chain even before I stopped eating at phở restaurants).  The 2013 Moonshadow Grove Mission Olive Oil is very spicy so when my daughter is eating, I use mild tasting avocado oil.


Two recipes below--Jerk ribs and dijon vinaigrette coleslaw.

Jerk Marinated Ribs 

(adapted from Bruce Aidell's Complete Book of Pork)

• 1 dried ancho chile, deseeded
• 1 sweet onion, quartered
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tbs ground allspice
• 1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
• 2 tbs organic coconut palm sugar
• 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp fennel
• 1 tsp celtic sea salt

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and blend to form a paste. Slather it on the rubs. In the best case scenario, you would marinade this the night before. In my usual, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants scenario, I grill it when the grill is ready. ("I" being the royal "I" here as you see my husband is doing the actual grilling wearing the new apron I waxed for him for Father's Day.)

Dijon Vinaigrette Coleslaw

4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head of savoy cabbage (approx 1.5 lbs)
• 1/2 tbs of grey sea salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil or avocado oil
• 3 tbs of organic raw apple cider vinegar (Trader Joe's, Azure Standard, or Bragg's are all excellent sources)
• 1 tbs of whole grain Dijon mustard (Trader Joe's has a nice one)
• freshly ground grains of paradise or black pepper
• pinch of grey sea salt

Quarter the head of cabbage.  Cut and discard the core.  Thinly slice the cabbage perpendicular to the center rib.  Toss in a bowl with 1/2 tbs of grey sea salt.  

Mix together the remaining ingredients and toss over the shredded cabbage.  Let sit at least 10-15 minutes prior to serving.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Rice, Rice, Baby! Sprouted brown rice

This post is for my friends Kyung Jin & Tina who inspired me to explain in the first place.  A picture is worth a thousand words, and a blog post is worth a thousand more and you know I can talk your ear off, so this is efficiency at work for ya!  Nary a klingon reference to be had.  And its free!  (Gotta love the new knowledge economy, unless of course one is an unpaid blogger... sigh.)

Organic brown rice (L to R) dried rice grain; soaked overnight; soaked and sprouted

RICE, RICE BABY

Rice is one of the fundamental staples of Asian diets from mythological times.  Paleoethnobotanists consider Southeast Asia to be the cradle of rice cultivation back when "continents known as Pangaea and Gondwanaland still existed."

I grew up on bowls and bowls of fragrant white jasmine rice.  White rice is machine milled removing the bran and the germ (rice DNA repository), and has recently been vilified as being stripped and nutritionally empty, spiking the blood sugar with empty carbohydrates.  

Even more recently, all grain has become a fairly new nutritional controversy.  By eating the low-saturated fat Standard American Diet (SAD), American folks are eating more carbohydrates and refined grains in particular to compensate for the calories.  The issue is that refined carbs (white flour, white rice, white sugar, well all sugar really) are a quick source of energy and quickly convert to sugar (glucose) in our bloodstream.  Too much sugar is the devil (okay, not the devil but can be the root cause of a lot of chronic diseases).  

Gluten-free diets don't escape from this problem entirely either.  The major mistake most folks make when switching from SAD to gluten-free is to swap out one highly refined grain-based carb (wheat) for another highly refined grain-based carb (rice, etc).  Highly refined, high carbohydrate diets will (eventually) kill you no matter which kind of grain.  Gluten-free works best when it is whole food, real food based.

Xena is HANGRY!
My kid calls her Xena the Lawyer Princess

One of the major differences between the Paleo/Primal diets and Weston Price (WAPF) is grain (the other differences as far as I can tell are saturated fat and dairy).  Paleo diet excludes grain and WAPF promotes soaked and sprouted grains.  As I've stated before, I'm not very interested in branding myself as an adherent to xyz nutritional diet and the territorial posturing that comes with it.  I'm interested in what works for my body and for my family's health.  On this issue, while I share a certain affinity with the Paleo/Primal diet, I do still eat grains (and saturated fat) though we eat fairly low grain.  I did an anti-inflammatory elimination diet for a year or so and then tried grain-free/paleo, but it exacerbated my blood sugar.  When one is waking 2-3 times a night hungry (and not-pregnant) and spending one's waking hours being very hangry, that is one's body sending a very clear message.  So on the issue of grain, I personally lean towards WAPF and my ancestral roots.

At the turn of the 20th century, Dentist Weston Price conducted a global exploration of the impact of processed foods on dental health (malnutrition, cavities, dental & jaw malformation) and concluded that nutrition and health are intrinsically linked; dental issues are symptomatic of systemic health.  Now, it's important to note he was looking at refined grains (white rice, bleached wheat, white sugar) of the industrial era vs traditional native foods (whole foods, whole grains/starches).

GOT RICE?

Previously I've mentioned, I believe the universalizing generalization of the "ancestral" nutritional diets ignores cultural/regional biome specificity & context.  Not all cavemen/natives are alike.  Biological anthropologists/archeologists/paleobotanists (i.e. people who actually research paleothic human societies as a full-time living) indicate that  plant-based foods--including grains/starches--comprise the majority of the calories in a hunter/gatherer ("starchivore") diet because the women (gatherers) are more consistently successful.  Being an anthropologist by training if not by profession/trade, I decided to look into the archeology of the ancestral Viet diet (in the Red River Delta).

• 16,000-20,000BP  (Hoabinh era) Hunter & Gatherer; limestone cave dwellers.  Diet consists of mollusks, fish, nuts, berries, roots, fungi, vegetables, wild grains, mammals.  The major protein snails, fruits or nuts were the source of daily nutrition needs of Hoabinhian food strategy.
• 6000 to 3000 BP (DaBut era) Transitional Hunter & Gatherer wood settlements on alluvial plains.  Diet consists of bivalve shellfish, nuts, fruit; first evidence for domestication of dog, pig and water buffalo (which are used for rice cultivation)
• 4000 years ago Agrarian--transition to primarily rice cultivation 
• Pre-industrialization.  I haven't sourced records of this from Viet Nam yet, but Thailand is an interesting comparable case study.  Thailand wasn't colonized by the West and rural areas did not experience the industrial exploitation that we see in VN. Modern machine mills producing polished white rice were not introduced until the 1950s and available mostly to the wealthy.  Poor folks ate the more nutritious hand-milled rice which did not remove the bran or germ in its entirety.

If one looks at the actual archeological research of the prehistoric era in Southeast Asia, rice does not lead to dental caries/cavities in the same way that maize does.  (I don't know when when hand-milling was introduced, suffice to presume that this is unrefined or at the most, partially milled rice). 

The agricultural period has long been recognized to have been a very important period in human prehistory.  Its timing and consequences, including the effects on human health, have been extensively researched.  In recent decades, this has included the idea that there is a universal positive correlation between the adoption of agriculture based on a carbohydrate staple crop and dental caries prevalences.  This is mainly based on evidence from America, where maize was the staple crop.  On the basis of evidence from prehistoric skeletal samples from a  series of prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia, this correlation does not appear to apply in areas of the world where the stale crop is rice.  Although we have looked only at dental caries, we suggest caution be applied in the drawing of inferences about substance changes from dental health.  Patterns reflecting the adoption of one starchy staple are not necessarily applicable to all such crops. (Source)

I personally don't condone the B-word.

So brown rice is not the same beast as wheat or corn.  That said, I don't presume to know whether brown rice is going to work for your body and health.  You have to figure that out and you do you.  For me and mine, organic brown rice is firmly entrenched in our ancestral and modern tradition.

I've mentioned in my Ancestral Foodways post the changes in my personal rice eating history:

I went from eating white jasmine rice every day 1-2 times a day to eating brown rice, then organic brown rice every day to now eating organic brown rice maybe 2-3 times a week and soaking and sprouting the rice...

Me and my beloved started eating brown rice maybe 7+ years ago to be healthier, but since brown rice still has the bran (and therefore all the fiber and nutrients), it is a lot denser, chewier, and frankly, not as tasty to eat.  A few years back my husband who was primary cook when my daughter was a baby through toddlerhood noted that soaking the brown rice made a big difference in the taste, texture, edibility.  So we started incorporating that into our cooking when we could remember.   Rice is after all dried for storage as a part of its harvest production, so soaking reconstitutes the grain and this should be considered a minimal step in the consumption of brown rice.

In the last few months, I've learned about sprouting grains & nuts and applied sprouting practices to rice:

soaking and sprouting ... 2-3 days to reduce the anti-nutrients like phytic acid which are inherent in all seeds and to leach out the arsenic from soil contamination that is endemic to all arable land all over the world; seeds contain all the genetic information for new life, so they have innate self-defense in the form of anti-nutrients like phytic acid.  Sprouting changes the rice from a seed to a plant and releasing its nutritional value. (Ancestral Foodways)

Since texture is a part of taste, this means sprouted brown rice (aka germinated brown rice, GABA brown rice--for the amino acid GABA that is released by sprouting, or hatsuga genmai) tastes better, with a softer bite.  Sprouted rice needs less water to cook than unsprouted rice.  

Sprouted rice is not as convenient as white rice.  It takes planning and forethought, not something I can always spare.  It is however hands down way more nutritious and definitely tastier than unsoaked, unsprouted brown rice.  So a couple of weeks ago, I realized I can make a mega-batch and freeze it so I will always have sprouted rice on hand.  (DUH!)  Theoretically I suppose sprouted rice can be dehydrated (I have seen this being sold as a highly marked up product), but you'd have to soak the rice again to reconstitute the grain and I'm sure that takes several hours/overnight.  You should probably save the sprouted rice in smaller portions.  For us, a family of three, I make ~3 cups which lasts us a several days.  This method below therefore yields 3 batches of slightly more than 3 cups (because the rice expands).

I use Lundberg Farms organic short grain brown rice which is about $1.14/lb from Costco. I love and prefer jasmine rice but it is too costly when organic.  One can also find partially milled brown rice at many Asian markets, but despite the lessened production time, it costs way more than polished white rice!  I know there's some backwards Smith-ian economic term to explain this.  (BTW Lundberg organic rice has lower arsenic content.  I take zeolite and eat seaweed to help reduce the heavy metal build up. 

Binchō-tan

*Also I just had an aha!-synapses-firing moment, you can add binchō-tan--Japanese carbonized wood--while soaking and cooking the rice.  The carbon in the binchō-tan helps to filter chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic, that can effect the taste.  I was recommended to use binchō-tan while cooking rice a few years back--possibly the Dae Jang Geum effect (full episode)--and I'm thinking the chemistry of why has to do with heavy metals.  (Thanks to my friend Miho for introducing me to the use of binchō-tan in rice cooking a few years back.)  Do not substitute American charcoal; it is not the same thing.  Binchō-tan can be obtained on the internet.  I finally can use that kilo of binchō-tan I bought randomly at a now closed organic Chinese store in Milpitas and now I know what to ask for as a souvenir when friends go to Japan.

I use the traditional Asian method (ancient Oriental secret) of water measurement for rice cooking--knuckles.  Knuckles are great because well, they allow our fingers to bend and be prehensile.  Almost everyone has one.  And, it doesn't cost any money.  With white rice, it's typically 1 knuckle of water above the rice; with unsprouted brown rice it's typically one and a half knuckles because the bran absorbs so much water; with partially milled rice, it's close to white rice; sprouted brown rice is less than half a knuckle.  There is an element of guesstimation on this because everyone likes their rice texture different so you have to figure out what is your optimal texture/water.  My mom likes it on the dry side; I take after my dad and like it on the mushy side.  My husband likes it on the dry side, my daughter likes it on the soft, but not mushy side.  Unlike Dae Jaeng Geum's mentor Lady Han (full episode), I haven't bothered to figure out how to make one pot of rice magically suit everyone.  (Though I do notice with the VitaClay, the to layer  is drier and the bottom mushier.)

One thing we noticed when eating real food, is that we need less because we are getting more nutrients from each bite.  Serving size is approximately 1/2 cup per adult.  I can get away with eating rice only once a day as long as one of my meals substitutes sweet potato/starchy tuber in its place (for whatever reason, organic potatoes don't work for me.  They leave me hungry overnight).

Organic brown rice grains, note opaque germ on the left of each grain (L to R) dried rice grain; soaked overnight; soaked and sprouted.  You can't see scale so much (I think the soaked had started to dry out after being in the colander all day), but the soaked grain is 1/3rd larger than the dried grain.

SOAKED & SPROUTED BROWN RICE

Ingredients:

• 9 cups of organic, short grain brown rice
• A lot of water

Day 1 SOAK

Soak 9 cups of organic brown rice in a container with plenty of filtered water overnight.  The rice will absorb water so add enough to cover plus 4-6 cups.  Leave on the counter in a warm spot, covered with a towel (to keep out light, dust and in my case, opportunist thirsty cat).

Day 2 rice grains reconstituted
note the opaque germ

Day 2 SPROUT

Drain the grains in a colander and rinse it with filtered water.  You should notice that each grain is now expanded to a third bigger and there is an opaque area at one apex.  This is the germ, where the genetic material of the seed is stored.  Leave this on your kitchen counter for a day under a damp towel (I like flour sack cloth).  Sometimes, by the end of the day, the rice will have already sprouted which is visible as a notch  on the opaque end of the grain (germ).  You can cook or freeze it at this point or allow it to sprout more.

Day 3 Zee GERM-ans have sprouted!

Day 3 RICE & ROLL

Rinse the grains with filtered water.  You should notice a little notch or a tail where the germ is.  Your rice is now ready to cook or store in the freezer!

Rice that has been sprouted needs less water when cooking.   Add rice to the pot and cover up to a half a knuckle of water above the rice line depending on your preference.  You can also add a chunk of binchō-tan (Japanese carbonized wood) while cooking to filter heavy metals including arsenic from the water. 

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Sprouted rice in our VitaClay ready to cook.  
This is a little too much water.

Cooked, sprouted brown rice (a little on the mushy side)

xôi gạo nếp lứt nảy mầm | sprouted sticky brown rice

Xôi (aka sweet rice, sticky rice, glutinous rice) is typically a dish for special occasions and breakfast.  It can be eaten sweet or savory or sometimes both.  There are many, many variations.  For this recipe I will be giving two variations Xôi | sweet-salty with coconut milk and Xôi Cúc | sweet-savory with mung beans.

I choose to sprout the grains & beans because doings so unlocks the anti-nutrients; grains & beans are after all seeds that contain all the genetic potential of the plant.  Seeds have inherent self-defense in the form of anti-nutrients such as physic acid.  Sprouting germinate the transformation from seed to plant and makes it more digestible.  Start sprouting two days prior to the day you plan to  cook.  Soaking the whole grain/legume in water helps to reconstitute the grain and reduces cooking time.
I discard any water used with the rice because of the issues with inorganic arsenic contamination.  I also use organic rice which has lower levels.

Using an unhulled or brown rice changes the texture of the xoi.  There is a slight crunchiness and integrity to the grain that one doesn't get with unhulled rice.  Xôi Cúc translates as chrysanthemum rice because if the bright yellow color of the hulled mung.  Leaving the hull on will change the color to a yellow-green.

Ingredients:

XÔI 

• 2 cups brown glutinous rice
• 1 cup coconut milk
• coconut palm sugar
• grey sea salt

XÔI CÚC

• 2 cups organic brown glutinous rice
• 2 cups unhulled organic mung beans
• 2 cups water
• 3 cloves garlic
• 4 shallots
• coconut oil or pasture-raised lard
• black pepper
• grey sea salt

Equipment:
Bowls for soaking/sprouting, immersion blender, skillet, steamer pot.

SPROUTING THE SEEDS 

TWO DAYS PRIOR
REGULAR XÔI 
Rinse the rice and then soak the rice in filtered water overnight in a dark place or covered with a dish towel.

XÔI CÚC
Rinse mung bean.  In a separate bowl, soak the mung beans in filtered water overnight in a dark place.

DAY BEFORE
REGULAR XÔI 
Drain the rice and discard the water.  Do not reuse the water .  Rinse and drain.  Leave in a dark place.

XÔI CÚC
Drain the mung beans (water can be composted).  Rinse and drain.  Leave in a dark place or covered with a  dish towel.  Once it sprouts a tail, move them into the fridge.

COOKING THE RICE & BEANS
REGULAR XÔI 
Put the rice in the steamer.  If your steamer has big holes, cover the pot with parchment paper or banana leaves with small holes poked into it to allow the steam to circulate.  Steam for 20 minutes then add coconut milk mixing well.  Steam for an additional 10 minutes until the brown rice grain has a slightly al dente texture with a soft interior.  Transfer to a serving bowl, add salt and sugar and mix well.

XÔI CÚC
Cook the mung beans and water in a regular pot for 5 min until just cooked. Drain them.

Fry the garlic and shallots in lard or oil for a few seconds until fragrant, then add the mung beans.  Add pepper and salt to taste.

Mix together the rice and mung beans and put them in the steamer.  If your steamer has big holes, cover the pot with parchment paper or banana leaves with small holes poked into it so the steam can circulate.  Steam for 30 minutes until until the brown rice grain has a slightly al dente texture with a soft interior.  

Sunny with a Chance of Sai Ua ໄສ້ອັ່ວ | Laotian sausages

Sai ua ໄສ້ອັ່ວ | Laotian sausages have been a bbq staple for us for many happy years and we've introduced it to our friends and family.  (I did a brisk interstate trade there for a while).  Sai ua are also common to Northern Thailand (since nation-state borders are an artificial capitalist construct and cut across language and cultures).  I am eternally grateful to Saysana for ordering this delicious dish at Champa Garden--and also for the gift of a nifty Laotian sticky rice steamer.  

A few years back, I convinced the owner of Vientiane Cafe to sell me the sausages frozen to grill at home and now they do a brisk sideline selling the sausages.  Since we moved to Fremont, we rarely hit up Vientiane anymore, and though Green Champa Garden makes it, it's a smaller portion and I react to the MSG besides.  You gotta get your sausage where you can.

I set myself the goal this year of using the slabs of pork belly from our annual pasture-raised organic hog buy.  I used one slab for making Bánh Chưng and I've been meaning to make sai ua with the rest.  If you must use conventionally-raised pork, my mom recommends soaking it with lemon juice and water overnight to "sweeten" the meat before marinading. The acidulation helps to break down the tough meat fibers from chemically laden, stressed out pigs.

The soft start to summer over Memorial Day Weekend provided the perfect opportunity to make some sai ua.   We kept the skin on which gave the sausage a great chewy/dense texture.  Since the pork belly is very fat-rich (and very healthy fat I might add), we supplemented the pork belly with some boneless pork shoulder roast from our local Whole Foods Market.  According to Phia Sing (b. 1898, d. 1967), Royal Cook in the Royal Palace at Luang Prabang, an ideal ratio would be 1:4 fat to meat; I got to 1:2 maybe 1:3 ratio and we were perfectly content with the result. 



I used Phia Sing's recipe as the basis and added other Southeast Asian flavors that I've tasted at Champa and Vientiane--lemongrass, lime leaf, galangal.  Galangal is a rhizome in the ginger family; it has a distinct zingy, pungent flavor almost mustardy/horseradish/wasabi-like.  If you cannot source galangal, omit it. I buy the biggest tuber I can find and then freeze whatever I don't use. Lime leaves also have a distinct taste without substitute.  If you cannot source them from a Southeast Asian market, you can occasionally find them dried in the spice aisle.  Lucky for me, my MIL has a makrut lime tree.  I harvest a bundle of leaves, wash & dry, and then freeze them.  They keep well in the freezer (actually all the spices used in this recipe store well in the freezer).  I completely forgot about the cilantro so it's not pictured but you should add it.  Thai bird's eye chile peppers are the preferred chile to use; spiciness can vary by pod so you can pre-taste a chile and judge how many you'll need from there.  Habañero is also another fine substitute, use sparingly.  I think I used serranos (I always forget to label things I throw in the freezer and then am annoyed at myself).  Use gloves when chopping any chiles and handling the spiced ground meat.  I have had Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad experiences involving habañeros and contact lenses.  Spare yourself the agony.  I always make a separate no-spice version because my daughter doesn't eat spicy.  You'll want to process that first before adding the chiles.

I happen to have a meat grinder because I raw feed my critters (benefits: optimal health, sleek bodies, silky fur, low odor stools, no parasites) and I used to make my own grind pre-kid.  The Northern Industrial meat grinder can take on chicken bones for whole prey feeding.  If you don't have a meat grinder, you can use a food processor though be sure to keep the grind coarse.  Though I do have a sausage stuffing attachment, I didn't bother to source casings from organic hog or not, so we ended up making sausage sliders.  I was going to wrap them in blanched banana leaves for grilling, but then it was faster to make patties than wrap 5 dozen links.  If you don't have equipment, you can use the old school method of chopping the meat into ever finer bits (as instructed in Phia Sing's recipe).   If you are into ancestral food ways, you would grind the spices in a mortar and pestle.  I don't know the science of why mortar & pestled food tastes better, but it just does.  Though I have a bit of a mortar and pestle collection going on (used to be five, I've downsized to the two my parents gave me--a volcanic rock molcajete and a Costa Rican mahogany one), I was pressed for time so used a food processor. I had a fine sous chef for this recipe run which cut my production time (wish I took a pix!  but my hands were busybusybusy); he cut the meats into smaller chunks, helped make patties and washed up a little bit.  It always takes time to establish a rhythm and harmony with a kitchen partner.  We've been together for over 15 years, married for 8, and partner well in the kitchen now.   I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this recipe!  It would be as if it rained breakfast food in a marvelous foodtopia.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Sai Ua ໄສ້ອັ່ວ | Laotian sausages

Makes 5 dozen two oz. patties

Ingredients:

• 3.5 - 4 lbs of pork belly including skin
• 3 lbs of pork shoulder
• 4 shallots
• 1/2 garlic head
• 4 lemongrass stalks
• 4 inches of galangal 
• 2 handfuls of makrut lime leaves
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 3 handfuls of celtic/grey salt 
• 1/2 cup+ of Red Boat fish sauce
• chiles to taste

Spice paste

Prep the spices for grinding or processing. Chop off the top third of the lemon grass and the base of the bulb and compost.  Using the dull edge of the knife, bruise the lemongrass to release the juices.  Cut into three pieces lengthwise. Peel garlic.  You can do the fancy chef 10 second way or use the flat side of a knife to smash the cloves and then remove the skin. Skin the galangal and cut into smaller chunks. Throw all the spices and salt into the food processor.  I found I didn't need additional liquid, but if you do need some to help with the processing, add fish sauce.

Sausage

Cut the pork belly into thick strips if you are using a grinder, cubes if you are using a food processor.  Cube the pork shoulder. Mix together the pork belly slices pork shoulder cubes and the spice paste.  Add more fish sauce.  In the ideal world, you would marinade this at least 2 hours and up to one day.  I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't marinade at all.

Meat Grinder: Use a coarse grinding plate.  Put a mix of belly/meat into the hopper of the grinder.  Reserve a high fat/skin piece of belly for to feed into the grinder last.  This clears out all the meat bits and with a grinder there is a very small amount of wastage that doesn't grind, so I'd rather waste fat & skin then meat.  Normally, I'd feed the leftover bit to the dog or cat, but since it had chile, I did not and had to throw it out.  (I hate wasting like that! I suppose I could have chopped it and added it, but time was a factor.)

Food processor: Fill the bowl with cubed belly & meat and pulse until coarsely ground. Once it's all ground, give it another mix to blend into the fat/skin, meat, and spices.  Add additional fish sauce at this time. Give the sausage a taste test at this time following these instructions from Phia Sing:

Take a very small sample portion of the mixture, wrap it in pieces of banana leaf and grill it until cooked. Taste it and check the saltiness. (If this test is satisfactory you can proceed to make the sausages. If the taste of the grilled sample is not right, adjust the seasoning.)

Line a roasting pan with parchment paper or banana leaves.  Make balls and form into patties.  I have a 2 oz cookie scoop that my sister gifted me that I use for baking (it's the exact amount of batter for a cupcake) and meat balling because it saves me time & energy.  If you are storing these for later, separate the layers with wax paper, parchment paper or banana leaves. Broil for 10-15 minutes or grill. Serve with brown sticky rice (recipe forthcoming).

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!