Jan 13, 2008

Ouah Guang (deer sausage)


Uncooked Sausage, notice the white chunks of sticky rice visible through the casing

I recently read in that online Lao cooking site aptly named Lao Cook that he couldn't find any sausage casings locally. All that fresh seafood and organic cuts of meat but no sausage casings, well at least stranded here in the landlocked Rocky Mountains that's one thing we do have.


Served with cilantro and green onions on the side

My Lao consultant cooked some up last week so I took some snaps for photos and here I am. My apologies for the pics. My small sensor doesn't do so well hand held in low light, or maybe it's the taker behind the picture. I need to think ahead and bump up the ISO or else pull out the tripod.


Deep fried

We still had some deer burger left over from the venison my friend Bryan gave us. It's pretty gamey as deer tends to be. Because it's already ground up my wife refuses to use it for laap, claiming laap needs to be chopped fresh with a knife. I think it's a waste to use in spaghetti as she is prone to doing.


Of course with sticky rice

The sausage was a pleasant surprise. The gamey venison wasn't covered up but rather used to it's best advantage. Seasoned with lemon grass and bai kii hoot the venison was able to hold it's own and not get lost as much meat tends to do, especially with that bai kii hoot, (kafir lime leaf).

The other ingredients were the usual suspects, salt, bang nuah, green onions, sticky rice. In this instance a spoon was used to push the ingredients into the casing, it was a small batch. For larger batches we use a sausage stuffer we bought from a farm supply. My job is to push the handle.

Cooking was done by deep frying. Cooked some chicken wings at the same time. On the side fresh cilantro, green onions, and sticky rice.

Sun saap.