Summer Pot Luck Contest: Embutido

There comes a time every person's life when you have to suck it up and just do the job. And that brings me to Mark's recipe in which all I saw was VIENNA SAUSAGES! Eegad man, what kind of blog do you think I'm running here!?

But I didn't start this contest by saying, "Give me your best recipes that don't include processed pig parts stuffed into tiny little cans." Maybe I should have. But I didn't. And that brings us to Mark's odd and oddly good recipe:

Embutido
500g Ground pork
50g Dry unseasoned bread crumbs
60g Whole milk. 100g vienna sausages
1 egg. 50g Grated cheddar cheese
2 T Sweet pickle relish
2 T Raisins
1 Carrot, grated
1 Onion, minced
Salt and pepper
Hard-boiled eggs (quail eggs are probably prettiest)

Start by hard boiling your eggs. We do the now famous method of putting your eggs in cold water, then as soon as it boils count 15 minutes. Turn off, cover for 10 minutes (15 minutes at our elevation), cool completely under water. In a large bowl, smoosh everything together.

If that doesn't look like a winning recipe, I don't know what does.

Form into 2-3 inch diameter logs (or use 8x3 loaf pans), with the eggs in the middle so the cross section shows when you cut the log later. Wrap each in foil (or cover the loaf pans with foil) and steam for an hour.

While this boils I'll mention that we are so unaccustomed to Vienna Sausages that Tyler actually bought Lil' Smokey's (which we're equally unaccustomed to) so we had a slight variation to Mark's recipe.

Having watched Mark's cooking for a few years I know that in the Philippines ovens aren't used so much, and steaming is common, so this technique makes a lot of sense. In our case, we just don't really have the setups to do steamed foods easily. For this loaf, I used a silicon measuring cup which was closer to 4" across. Covered in foil as directed, and then because I didn't want to cook the bottom too fast, I placed some stainless steel chopsticks on the bottom of the pan to lift the measuring cup off the bottom and allow for water circulation. With the additional diameter, we steamed for nearly two hours, but at sea level and a smaller container this should go much faster.

We let it rest about 10 minutes and dumped (I use that word purposefully).

We were having quite a laugh at Mark's expense at this point (for those of you who aren't regular readers, know that we wouldn't make fun if we didn't know Mark well enough).

Back to his instructions. Can be served cold/ at room temperature/ or pan-fry the log until the exterior is brown and crusty and it's heated through (my preferred method). Slice and serve.

We served this with some yellow rice and a nice salad. The verdict...you'll have to wait. In the meantime, hunt down the Vienna sausages and give this a try.