Fried Starch Sausage

Fried Starch Sausage

　　Starch sausage is a snack whose name is misleading. In Beijing, fried starch sausage actually contains no casing, so how did it get this name? According to an old “qinxing” (chef), originally it was made by stuffing pig small intestines with mung bean starch paste and red yeast rice. After steaming, the outer skin was white while the center was pinkish. It was then sliced and pan-fried in scalding lard (a byproduct of meat processing plants, also called floating oil), resulting in a crispy outside and tender inside. Served with a garlic salt sauce, it had a unique flavor unmatched by any other snack. Later, it was discovered that pig intestines didn’t mix well with starch — when put in the hot oil, the casings would shrivel, the texture became unpleasant, and the cost was high. So some simply removed the casing, shaped the starch into sausage-like forms, and steamed them. That’s how the name “starch sausage” stuck. Nowadays, mung bean starch is expensive, so sweet potato starch is used as a substitute. The fried result still has a decent texture, but lacks the appealing color that red yeast rice provided.

　　Street vendors selling starch sausage would carry a shoulder pole with a setup on each end: one side held a low stove with a large griddle, and the other side had pre-cut sausages, which they fried and sold on the spot. Making fried starch sausage isn’t particularly technical, but getting the heat right is crucial — the outside should be crispy without being tough, and the inside tender without falling apart. Serve it on a plate sprinkled with garlic salt sauce, and spear it with a bamboo stick. That’s the real Beijing flavor! Those who don’t eat garlic will never know what starch sausage really tastes like. Frying it in vegetable oil significantly dulls the flavor — it’s not that it becomes inedible, but it loses its distinctiveness. Frying in scalding lard is a defining feature of authentic starch sausage. Most households use lard rendered from pork fat to fry it, and the taste remains just as good.

　　In the early days of Beijing, there were two famously renowned shops for fried starch sausage, one in the northern part of the city and one in the southern. One was HeYiZhai, located west of the north end of Houmen Bridge. The other was a small shop inside the west passageway of Beimen (North Gate) in the XianNong Market (now the outpatient building of Friendship Hospital) on Beiwei Road. Both used pure mung bean starch and high-quality red yeast rice. After steaming, the sausage was sliced evenly and fried to perfection — truly surpassing the ordinary. These two shops no longer exist. Although the HeYiZhai signboard remains, its offerings have long been modernized. In the 1950s and 60s, there was a one-room starch sausage shop at the northeast entrance of LongFu Temple, which preserved the old Beijing flavor. Today, the pink starch blobs sold in markets, due to the limited quality of the starch, turn into a pile of floury slices once fried — they’ve lost even the semblance of sausage shape!

　　— How to Make Fried Starch Sausage —

　　Homemade Starch Sausage: Use one pound of sweet potato starch noodles (the kind sold at farmers markets) and one pound of sweet potato starch (corn starch is not suitable). Boil the noodles until 80% cooked, then drain and cool. Mix the starch into a thick paste-like consistency, combine it with the noodles, and place the mixture in a lunchbox or steam in a cloth-lined steamer tray until set. Once cooled, slice and fry as needed. This homemade version may not look as authentic, but the taste is genuinely traditional Beijing flavor. The garlic must be mashed into a paste, and salt and MSG should be added to taste to make the garlic sauce. Chopping garlic with a knife greatly diminishes the flavor. Experience shows that no traditional recipe should be casually altered, let alone made with shortcuts or inferior ingredients.

　　Ingredients: One cup of starch (divided into two parts), garlic, salt.

　　Method:

　　1. In a small pot, pour one cup of cold water and add half a cup of starch. Stir with chopsticks until uniform, then place on the stove over heat. Keep stirring continuously as it heats. Soon, the raw starch will begin to thicken and clump together. When the starch has mostly formed a solid mass, remove from heat.

　　2. In the same pot, add the remaining half cup of dry starch. First use chopsticks, then your hands, to knead all the dry starch in. Finally, knead the dough until smooth and nicely formed, then shape it into a log about the thickness of a flashlight. Place it in a steamer over boiling water and steam for 30 minutes. When the originally snow-white starch turns slightly translucent or bluish-white, it’s done. Let the starch log cool completely before slicing and frying.

　　3. Before frying, crush the garlic. Let the crushed garlic sit in cool water with salt until ready to use.

　　4. Slice the starch log into thin pieces and pan-fry them in a little oil in a flat-bottomed pan until both sides are crisp. Serve in individual small dishes, topped with the garlic salt sauce.

　　Notes:

　　The ratio of water to starch is 1:1. No matter how much you make, always use the same container to measure both. First, mix one part water with half a part starch to create a sticky dough, then add the remaining half part raw starch to form the sausage shape. Before the starch mixture holds together, keep stirring continuously. When kneading the raw starch, it might feel a bit hot at first. Stir a few times with chopsticks, let it cool a bit, and it’ll be fine. It’s best to prepare it the day before, refrigerate it, and fry it the next day. The cooled starch is easier to slice thinly, and thin slices fry up crispier. For the garlic sauce, crush a small amount of garlic and mix it with a relatively larger amount of water and salt. This sauce is what you dip or drizzle the fried sausages in. Crushed garlic is essential for good flavor. Avoid adding soy sauce or vinegar to preserve its unique aroma. Adding a bit of red food coloring can make the sausages look even more like the traditional pink version.