When I was growing up, my family used to go to a restaurant in Chinatown, London, called Poons. It's now called China City, and I'm not sure if it's the same people running it, but the food is still nice.
One of the things we would frequently order was wind-dried Chinese sausages. These seem to come in two main types - a lighter, fatty variety which looks a bit like a thin stick of salami and tastes of rich, cured pork, and a darker variety which has a more liver like taste to it. You can buy these sausages in Chinese supermarkets and whenever I'm near one, I always drop by to pick up a couple packs for me and my parents'... and they do the same.
Last week, my parents were in London and they brought me back two packs of sausages.
lighter type on the left, darker in the pink package on the right.
There are different ways to cook them, one of which is to simply pop them in the pot with your rice and let them cook together. Whilst this gives the rice a lot of flavour, it also means that all of the fat running out of the sausages goes into the rice. The result tends to make me feel a little queasy, so I prefer to steam mine over water, allowing the fat to run out.
I use a Chinese bamboo steamer (actually I own 3 of these because having bought one myself, I also received 2 as gifts. Doesn't matter because the steamer tends to start falling apart after a lot of use, so I'm glad I have back-up sections). As you can stack them up, I like to steam the sausages on the bottom level and the veg above - this way the fat from the sausages is running into the water rather than over the veg.
You fill the bottom of the wok with water and set over heat to boil, then stack the steamer(s) in the wok.
A few leaves of savoy cabbage in the top level.
Then the lid goes on top to keep the heat in. Need to keep an eye on these to make sure the wok doesn't run dry.
And after 20 mins, the sausages and the cabbage are steamed, and the rice is done:
here you can see the two different types, light and dark:
Afterwards, I let the water in the wok cool and evaporate off, leaving the fat behind and I dispose of this with a paper towel so I'm not putting the fat down the drains.
I have 'introduced' a lot of my friends to these sausages and so far only one has loved them as much as I do. I guess because the flavour is very rich and fatty, it's something that a lot of people don't like... but personally I think they are fab. =)
---
Pancakes!
Shrove Tuesday (the day before the start of Lent) in the UK is celebrated by eating (flat) pancakes. I do mine the traditional way with lemon juice and sugar, rolled up. This is pretty much the only day of the year I don't feel guilty for eating 10 pancakes in a row, standing by the cooker as the next one cooks.
I did sneak in a banana and maple syrup one at the end though ;)
Also, I have to add, I am an expert pancake tosser!
~Hannah
