An Australian version of a Filipino sausage dish

Dear Readers,

I write this to you at 8:02pm on Thursday, 30 December, 2010, from my dining room table. On the other side of the room, in the kitchen, I am in the process of frying sixteen Aussie Beef sausages, in a pan... literally saturated with vegetable oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and smoked paprika. I confess! I'm an addict now!

Before Joe introduced me to longanisa, I'd never cooked with rice wine vinegar (or indeed any sort of vinegar, unless a recipe specifically called for it), had no idea that one could buy smoked paprika, and didn't know what rice wine even was! Now, my life has been enriched, I feel... Enriched... with garlic...

So, Joe was right when he said that I had some reservations about the amount of garlic included. I read the recipe and it said, 4 cloves of garlic. When I went to the supermarket, I saw four heads of garlic in a little bag and something in my mind linked "four" to "garlic", and I picked up the entire bunch, delighted that I'd been able to buy all of what I needed. Got home and showed Joe. One look at the expression on his face and I suddenly remembered that "cloves" of garlic were slightly smaller than "heads" of garlic...

Never mind. I'm well stocked up with garlic now. Which is good, as I'm addicted and all. (Edward Cullen, stay away.)

May I just interrupt this missive to say -- YUM: I know it's not pork, but it's damned good.

Anyway, I had no trouble finding minced pork. Well, I had a little trouble finding minced pork on its OWN, but as I'd left it until the last minute to get the ingredients (and I wasn't the only one... judging by a panicked pork-seeking phone call from my love received as I was perusing the aisles for rice wine vinegar...), I settled for minced pork and veal. Same diff.

I had never made a marinade before. Joe seemed to be a bit of a veteran at it, and coaxed me through the parts where I had to get all up close and icky with the raw meat. I'm not squeamish or anything, but dude. It was slippery and squooshy. We both sealed our bowls of marinating meat off with cling-film and vowed to return to it in the morning. And we did!

To respond to Joe's teaser of the "good side" pic - here's one of them (not sure the rest of you would appreciate the, er... closer one):

It had never occurred to me that there was any other way of preparing a three-part meal than preparing it all at once. Being a veteran of the Atkins diet (and yes, my migraines are much better, thank you), I am an expert at frying eggs now, and know that I can achieve perfect scrambled eggs on a hot pan in less than thirty seconds. (Thank you, Jamie Oliver.) I was caught off-guard when Joe seemed surprised that I'd charged on ahead and organised enough pans to fry tofu, mincemeat and eggs. Isn't that normal? ... Isn't it? ... Eventually, Joe came around to my hastened cooking pace, and we created a MAGNIFICENT MEAL.

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I must go on and on at some length about the fabulous taste of this dish. I don't think I included ENOUGH garlic. It could surely have coped with more! And the rice wine vinegar! So sweetly tangy. The tofu was delicious, though not as crispy as I remember my former housemate Liz's tofu was, and the eggs were sublime. A perfect dish. I enjoyed it very much the next day at work for lunch, too (topped off with a phone call to Joe - the perfect lunch-time, indeed).

I have since discovered from a Filipino workmate at my new place of work that longanisa is indeed available in Canberra - you just have to know where to go. Rynna has recommended a tiny Asian grocery store in Fyshwick, which apparently stocks these sausages frozen in the back of the store. I shall journey out there on an upcoming day off and see for m'self. (Been rather handy having a Filipino workmate. Rynna's delighted about Joe! Her husband has been posted at the Embassy here.)

I love that Joe and I could share a dish from his native Philippines, and am very much looking forward to being in the same kitchen as him to experience this food with him.

Joe, being a brat, and teasing me with ice-cream. ICE-CREAM.

Always,
Pammy