After keeping my eyes open for a food blogger with the same taste in food as me, I’ve discovered this blog by an Indonesian woman who cooks all the foods my wife and I just love to eat. Interestingly enough, she’s local to us, which is a funny coincidence, considering how many bloggers and cooks there are out there.
I found this recipe on her blog quite by accident, and have since discovered dozens of Asian and Indonesian recipes that I’d like to try. The recipe presented below is made almost exactly as she had posted, and it turned out to be an outstanding melding of flavors. I highly recommend it.
So, with out further delay…
What you’ll need for the sausage:
- 1.5 lb ground pork (medium fatty)
- ½ cup dried split mung beans (soaked overnight). These are dried and can be found in your local Asian market. Just ask for them if they’re hard to find.
- ½ cup dry-roasted peanuts
- 3T sugar
- 2t salt
- 1 large egg, beaten
What you’ll need for the spice paste:
- 1.5 stalks lemongrass, thinly sliced
- 1.5T fresh cilantro stems, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 large shallot, chopped
- 6 kaffir lime leaves with the middle veins cut out (scissors work well for this)
- 1-inch galangal, peeled and chopped. This is such a small amount that I would say it’s optional if you can’t find it at the store.
- 1 dried chili de arbol (I omitted this)
- 4 Thai chilies (it’s not too many, and they will not make it too hot)
- 6T coconut milk (I would start out with four, and add more if needed)
What to do:
Place the soaked mung beans and peanuts in a food processor and pulse until chopped. They’ll end up as a somewhat dry, stiff paste. Scoop out and reserve.
In the same food processor, grind all the spice paste ingredients to a fine consistency.
In a medium bowl, add the mung bean/peanut paste, spice paste, sugar, salt, beaten egg and ground pork, then mix well. If it’s too dry, you can add more coconut milk, but I had originally used 6, and it made the mixture a bit too moist and difficult to make the patties with.
Preheat a skillet (nonstick would work best in this case) and shape the sausage mixture into thin patties of whatever size you like.
Cook patties with a little oil until cooked through—maybe about 6-9 minutes per side.
They can be served with rice, crusty bread or salad. Or if you want to be irreverent, you could put them on buns and eat them like burgers or sliders.
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