I want to be the first to tell you that I really like Vietnamese food. The flavors are bold the ingredients are exotic and their sausage is amazing.
The sausage I’m talking about is called Nem Nuong. This is a grilled pork sausage that is often served as a snack or appetizer or served with rice noodles or rice as a main dish. I personally love to wrap this sausage in a spring roll with lettuce, carrots, rice noodles, and bell peppers. When I’m not doing that it’s generally in a delicious bowl of Pho I’ve whipped up.
There are many things that I really like about this sausage. First is the flavor. This sausage ticks some serious flavor boxes as you will find a nice balance of sweet, salty, and umami in this sausage. Secondly is how easy it is to make. In todays recipe we will make this sausage with only a food processor. Finally I love how well it freezes. You can freeze this sausage raw or cook it and freeze the cooked portions for later use.
Here are a few things you might find useful when making sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Chef Knife – KOTAI
- Boning Knife
- Sausage Pricker
- Iwatani Professional Chef Torch
- Insta Cure #1
- Potato Starch
- Non Fat Dry Milk Powder
- Meat Grinders
- Meat Mixers
- Sausage Stuffers
- Smokers
- Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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Vietnamese Nem Nuong
Ingredients
- 500 g lean pork
- 500 g pork belly
- 16 g garlic cloves
- 150 g shallots finely chopped (or red onions)
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 15 g brown sugar
- 10 g rice flour toasted
- 8 g baking powder
- 30 g potato starch
- 4.5 g powdered chicken stock
- 200 g crushed ice
- 1 tsp annatto liquid optional for color
- 2.5 g Insta Cure #1 optional
Instructions
- Cut the lean pork and the pork belly into small cubes and place in the freezer to chill
- In a food processor with sharp blades add the chilled meat along with the rest of the ingredients
- Chop everything in food processor till it turns into a tacky paste. This should only take a minute or two.
- Once you have a tacky paste form the mince meat onto skewers or make meat balls and grill till the internal temp reaches 155F, Enjoy
- Once cooked this sausage can be frozen for later use.
RECIPE NOTE
- If you use a Curing Salt then let the meat rest in the refrigerator overnight
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Why are you using cure when this cooks up as fresh sausage?
This sausage has cure #1 for it’s color preservation and for flavor enhancement. It’s a totally optional ingredient..
The roasted rice powder .Is it used for fermentation?
Yes
Hi Eric. Thanks for a recipe that looks good for those of us who can’t seem to pull the trigger on buying a meat grinder and stuffer.
But your recipe lists no salt (other than 2.5g Prague 1), whereas in the description you say “nice balance of sweet, salty, and umami”.
I’m guessing maybe 15 grams salt per kilo, but didn’t want to try it without checking first.
Thanks again.
Hey Johann. The salt in this recipe comes from the fish sauce. If you add extra salt (which you totally can) the end result will be very salty
Whoops! Thanks so much for your reply. I’d like to claim “I would have thought of that”, but I doubt it.
I didn’t realize how much salt is in fish sauce. My brand says 1.8 g/Tbs, which converts to 4.6g sodium chloride per tablespoon.
Which is right about 14 g salt per kilo of meat. Glad I didn’t go ahead with my assumption – it would have been an inedible mess.