Vietnamese Geese Sausage Salad Rolls
The flavors in this dish are taken from a traditional 7-course beef dinner meal served at Vietnamese restaurants. I’ve taken bits from each beef course and packed them into one recipe. Seasoned with toasted peanuts, lemongrass, and Chinese five-spice.
The title says salad rolls but you can eat these grilled meat patties as an appetizer or in a bowl with a base of salad, rice, or noodles.
Other alternative ways to use this sausage recipe:
wrapped in caul fat
piped into animal casing.
Good To Knows…
Wild Game and Fat Ratios
If you want it to have a juicy, bouncy sausage-like texture, you need fat. I am not near a butcher; therefore, I buy pork belly and grind it myself. You can sub for 1/2 cup of ground oats and an egg if you are adamant about using 100% wild meat.
Type of Meat
This recipe works with any ground meat. I’ve tried it with blacktail deer and grass-fed beef. If you’re using beef, there’s no need for extra fat; buy 1.5 pounds of regular ground beef.
Test batch #3 and #4 made with 1lb geese and 1/2 pork belly
Finely Minced Lemongrass; Buy It Frozen
Vietnamese cooking uses finely minced lemongrass often, but it’s not easy to do if you don’t own a food processor. Therefore at most grocery stores, you should be able to find pre-minced lemongrass in the frozen veggie section. If you are brave enough to mince it yourself, use only the inner tender parts that are less fibrous.
Chinese Chicken Stock Powder, aka MSG aka FLAVOR!
Chinese chicken stock powder tastes different from North American versions. Every Asian household has a neutral and MSG-filled chicken stock powder. I suggest you do the same. My favorite brand is, Lee Kum Kee Chicken Bouillon.
Storage
Freezing and long-term storage - roll into individual balls, place on a lined baking tray, and freeze them to hold their shape. Once frozen, drop them into a labeled container for long-term storage.
How to Serve
Serve with rice paper, lettuce, noodles, dipping sauce. Traditionally rice paper wraps are served to build your own as you eat style. For a quicker meal, eat in a rice or noodle bowl format, filled with veggies and drizzled with dipping sauce.
Cooking Methods
Traditionally, these are grilled over a coal barbeque. You can do the same or fry them in a pan as I did. I find a fast fry in bear fat yields a juicier result.
Vietnamese Geese Sausage Salad Rolls
Ingredients
Instructions
- Measure a generous 1/3 cup of peanuts, toast them in a pan until starting to brown. Let it cool and crush them; look for a mostly fine texture with a few crunchy bits. I used a motor and pestle, but a grinder or food processor works too. Set aside.
- Use a large bowl big. Add in: 3 tablespoon water, 1/2 teaspoon five-spice, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon Chinese chicken stock powder, 1 teaspoon cornstarch, and mix until a paste.
- Add to the same bowl, 1 pound of minced geese, 1/2 pound of minced pork belly, 1/3 cups of crushed peanuts, and 3 minced green onion stems. Mix meat well, in one direction, until a smooth and sticky paste.
- Let meat mixture rest for at least 30 minutes refrigerated.
- Make the patties by wetting hands and scooping golf-size balls. Keep them on a lined baking tray.
- When ready to cook, smash them down slightly for more service area to brown—fry one patty to test out salt levels before rolling and frying the rest.
- I cooked them in bear fat in cast-iron for 3 minutes on each side until about medium-well.
- Serve right away!
- Set the table with all the ingredients to make rice rolls laid out. Get a shallow large bowl, filled with warm water. With a small side of nuoc cham, dipping sauce for each person at the table.
- Use a large dinner plate as your rolling surface. Do not put rice paper on a wood surface it will stick!
- Quickly dunk one rice sheet into the water, shake off access water. Do not wait for the paper to soften. Lay on the plate and put noodles, herbs, sprinkle of peanuts and fried shallots, and 1 meat patty (I cut mine in half or thirds) on one side of the rice paper. Fold one side over, then the ends, and then continue rolling the rest of the way.
- Eat right away and repeat!
A special thanks to John at Bear Paw Taxidermy for gifting me with his wild geese harvest. This was my first time cooking with geese. John has done some awesome work on my moose skull; he’s your guy for all your mounts and skull cleaning needs.
Happy Cooking!
Jenny Ly
