Lap Xuong (Homemade Fresh Vietnamese Sausage), Made with Monk Fruit Sweetener
Vietnamese dishesDried and PreservedNationwide20 minutes preparation, 2 hours drying
Around Tet, plenty of people go looking for a homemade lap xuong recipe so they know exactly what is inside. The pleasure is in the casing hugging the filling, with crisp fat against firm meat. The catch is that a casing stuffed too tightly splits, while too little fat leaves the sausage dry.
After mixing, the meat is slapped down into the bowl a few times so it binds and firms up, and a small piece is fried off to taste before the seasoning is fixed. The collagen casing is filled with a light hand, since a tight fill splits during drying.
This batch weighs about 679g, at roughly 210 calories per 100g.
Method
Rinse 120g pork fat, dice it and set it aside.
Mix all the seasonings together: 18g kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, 10ml white rice wine, 5g five spice powder, 2g black pepper, 3g salt, 15ml oyster sauce, 2g ground ginger, 2g garlic powder, 2g onion powder and 3 drops of red food coloring. Taste and adjust.
Mix 500g ground pork and the diced fat with the seasoning, knead well with gloved hands and slap the mass down into the bowl a few times so it binds and firms up. Fry a small piece, taste it and adjust the seasoning.
Cut a length of collagen casing, slip it over the nozzle of a funnel and tie one end. Put the meat in the funnel and push it down with a chopstick to fill the casing.
Pull the funnel away, press out any air and twist the casing into short links, keeping the fill loose enough that the casing does not split.
Prick any remaining air pockets with a needle, smooth the casing against the meat and roll each link until it is evenly round.
Lay the links on a rack with gaps between them, set a tray underneath to catch the fat, and dry at 90 to 100C with the fan on for 2 hours. In dry sunny weather, hang them for 2 to 3 days instead until firm.
In humid weather, drop the temperature to 60 to 70C with the fan on after the first 2 hours and dry for another 2 to 3 hours, until the casing wrinkles and each link feels only slightly soft.
Tips
Keep the fat between 100 and 120g, since too little leaves the sausage dry.
The sweetener and the wine give the sausage a gentle tang as it dries, so keep to the amounts in the recipe.
The meat and fat have to be cold when the casing is filled, since melted fat leaves the link pitted and dry.
Frying a small piece to taste before filling the casing saves any correction halfway through.
Pricking the air pockets and smoothing the casing onto the meat is what makes each link even.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.