Why chicken breast meat? Because I made these sausages for my older daughter, Sam, who prefers white over red meat. Because breast meat is much too lean, so I added oil to the mixture because without it, the chicken meat would not have softened sufficiently and Sam would have gotten dry and dense longganisa. It was a tablespoon and a half of oil the first time, that wasn’t enough to moisten the meat so I had to double the amount the next time.
What spices and seasonings went into the mixture? The basic salt and pepper, and a bit of sugar for balance. Annatto powder for color and, for depth, garlic and onion. I prefer dried garlic and onion for making longganisa because the water content of their fresh counterparts will just make the longganisa too wet which is not a good thing for frying. The water will just create unnecessary steam inside the sausages which can cause them to split apart during frying. And the oil spatter… Oh, my goodness, I can live without that.
To form and shape the longganisa, I used cling wrap which I cut into pieces. If you think that the wrapped longganisa in the photo above is much too fat and long, that’s not the size in which the longganisa was served. The sausages were chilled before they were cut into shorter lengths and fried.
Why chill before frying? To firm up the mixture and allow it to retain its shape. At room temperature, the chicken mixture is simply difficult to handle.After chilling, the oil in the mixture has bound the chicken meat, spices and seasonings into a solid mass. Cutting and handling was easy.
Ingredients
Skinless chicken longganisa mix
- 350 grams ground chicken breast meat
- 1 teaspoon dried minced garlic
- 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
- 1 ½ teaspoons rock salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon annatto atsuwete powder, or substitute paprika
- 1 ½ teaspoons brown sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons cooking oil
To cook and serve
- cooking oil for frying
- cooked rice to serve
Instructions
Make the skinless chicken longganisa mix
- Place the ground chicken in a mixing bowl.
- Add the rest of the ingredients for the mix.
- Stir everything together until the coloring looks even.
Shape the skinless chicken longganisa
- Cut a square piece of cling film and lay flat on your work surface.
- Place about one-fourth cup of the skinless chicken longganisa mix at the center and spread to form a log.
- Lift the edge of the cling film nearest you and cover the chicken mixture.
- Roll into a log as tightly as you can about an inch and a half in diameter. Double check that there are no air pockets in the chicken mixture after rolling.
- Tuck in the sides of the cling film to fully seal the chicken mixture.
- Repeat until all the chicken mixture has been shaped and rolled.
- Chill the skinless chicken longganisa in the fridge for two hours.
Fry the skinless chicken longganisa
- In a frying pan, heat enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least two inches.
- Take the skinless chicken longganisa out of the fridge and cut each log into three to four portions before peeling off the cling film.
- Fry the chicken longganisa over medium-high heat, rolling the sausages in hot oil for even cooking.
