Skinless Longanisa

Sweet Cured No-Casing Sausage

Skinless Longanisa is a cured, no-casing sausage that is sweet, salty and with coarsely ground black peppercorns.

They are usually served at breakfast with garlic fried rice and a runny sunny-side up egg.

Skinless, because it is missing the casing, which is traditional for longanisa.

Curing the meat with saltpeter (salitre) gives it the reddish hue, but we skip that ingredient since we are making for home consumption.

Now, just like the homemade tocino, we use a red food color to make it look appetizing and authentically cured.

You may notice that the longanisa may look big when formed but tend to shrink in size after cooking.

That is the fat cooking off since the longganisa usually has a lean to fat ratio of 3:1 or even 2:1, meaning for every 3 part lean meat, 1 part fat is added.

If making your own mix, you have the option of choosing the lean/fat ratio that you want , but keep in mind that:

-- although too much fat can make the longanisa too greasy, too lean will cause it to dry out and be rubbery.

YOUR SKINLESS SAUSAGE SHOPPING LIST:

• Ground Lean Pork
• Ground Pork Fat
• Vinegar
• Red food color

IN THE PANTRY:

• Sugar
• Garlic
• Salt
• Soy Sauce
• Ground Pepper or Peppercorns

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 pound Ground Lean Pork
• 1/2 pound Ground Pork Fat

MARINADE
• 1 tablespoon kosher or table salt
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 head of Garlic, finely minced
• 3 tablespoons Vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Ground Pepper or coarsely ground Peppercorn(Pamintang Buo)
• 1/4 teaspoon Red food color


• 4 x 2 inch Wax paper for wrapping
• Cooking Oil for frying

1 Mix the marinade together and add the ground meat.

2 Knead to mix thoroughly and refrigerate overnight for meat to absorb the marinade.

3 Portion about 3 tablespoons onto a 4" x 2" wax paper and roll into 4" x 3/4" logs, refrigerate.

4 When ready to cook, fry the skinless longanisa in cooking oil using medium heat.

5 Serve with garlic fried rice, sunny-side up fried egg, and a side dip of vinegar with chili peppers or slices of tomatoes.

BENG'S TIPS

• Though not traditional, you could use regular ground pepper instead of coarsely ground peppercorns if you hate biting into chunks of spicy peppercorns.


• No table and kosher salt? Use Iodized salt but do half of what the recipe is calling for.


• We refrigerate the meat before forming into sausage logs to meld the flavor well and for easy forming and handling.


• You can use an ice cream scooper to portion the meat so they are all the same sizes.


• My friend, Leni Lawas, shared that the best vinegar to use in making longanisa is Sukang Ilokos.

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