Sai Ua (Thai Sausage)
I was a butcher for 14 years. Sausage making was definitely my specialty. I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for quite sometime. I first had this Northern Thai sausage years ago at a local a Thai restaurant. Holy shit was it good! Super spicy. It was served with slices of cucumber and sticky rice. I’ve had it a few times since then, but have never made it at home. If you have the right equipment, it’s fairly easy.To make the curry paste, simply mix all of the ingredients together in a food processor or with an immersion blender. A nice tip when making curry paste: if the paste has turmeric in it, mix that separately in a bowl in last so you don’t permanently dye your food processor yellow.If you are able to grind your own pork, I recommend that you do so. When I make a pork sausage, I like to grind the pork once through on a medium grinding plate. If you don’t, you’ll have to ask your local butcher to do this for you. You can also use fatty ground pork, but that is ground twice through. Either honestly work. I just have my personal preference in texture of sausage.Mix the curry paste into the ground pork along with finely chopped lime leaves, green onion, and cilantro stems. Put on a soaked sausage casing on the sausage horn. Feed the sausage through the sausage horn attachment, keeping the sausage firm but not so tight that you can’t twist it. Pinch the end of the first link. Measure out by hand about 6”. Crimp with your left hand. Twist forward 5-7 times to create your first link. Move down another 6” and crimp, twisting the sausage backwards in the opposite direction. Repeat this process crimping every 6”, twisting forward one link, backwards the next, until all of the sausages have been twisted. You should yield 10-12 sausages. Let the sausages settle for 2 hours before cutting and cooking.There are a couple of different ways you can cook these sausages. You can either grill, broil, or pan fry the sausages. They will only takes 5-6 minutes a side. I highly recommend to not par boil the sausages. Par boiling boils out a lot of the fat and seasoning, ultimately making the sausages dry. I prepared mine on the stove top. To make sure that they get cooked all the way through, put a cover on your pan. I served these with slices of cucumber. The cucumber helps cut through the heat of the sausages.
Equipment
- Kitchen Aid mixer with grinder and sausage attachment
- Food processor or immersion blender
Ingredients
Curry Paste
- 24 dried arbol chilies seeded and ground
- 9 slices galangal chopped
- 3 stalks lemongrass bottom half, chopped
- 1 tbsp ground turmeric
- 1 cup shallots chopped
- 1 head garlic peeled
- zest of 1 lime
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 3 tsp shrimp paste
Thai Sausage
- 3 lbs fatty pork shoulder
- 15 lime leaves finely chopped
- 15 cilantro stems finely chopped
- 3 green onions finely chopped
- pork sausage casings
Instructions
- Mix all of the curry paste ingredients together in a food processor or immersion blender. Set aside.
- If using a Kitchen Aid grinder attachment, cut pork shoulder II to small strips. Grind the pork once through using the medium grinding plate.
- Mix in the curry paste, lime leaves, green onion, and cilantro stems.
- Using the sausage stuffer attachment on the Kitchen Aid mixer, put on a soaked sausage casing on the sausage horn. Feed the ground sausage through the stuffer, keeping the links firm, but not over stuffed.
- Pinch the end of the first link. Measure out by hand about 6”. Crimp with your left hand. Twist forward 5-7 times to create your first link. Move down another 6” and crimp, twisting the sausage backwards in the opposite direction. Repeat this process crimping every 6”, twisting forward one link, backwards the next, until all of the sausages have been twisted. You should yield 10-12 sausages. Let the sausages settle for 2 hours before cutting and cooking.
- Heat up 1 tbsp of cooking oil in a small sauté pan over medium high heat. Add in the sausages.
- Cook for 5-6 minutes a side. If you are concerned about the sausage being cooked all the way through, cook with a cover. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.
