Snow Peas with Chinese Sausage – Sybaritica

The sweet, apple-like quality of Chinese Preserved Sausage is often paired with more robust green vegetables such as Gai-Lan, or green-beans, but I think it also works nicely with the more delicate crispness of fresh snow-pea pods. You could, of course. Increase the amounts over those used here and serve everything as a larger entrée dish as part of a Chinese meal but it is quite rich and I conceived it as more of an appetizer, or a small offering served in a series of dim-sum type dishes…

Ingredients

• 1 small package of Snow peas;
• 2 Chinese Sausages;
• ½ a small Onion;
• 1 pinch Sugar;
• 1 splash each of Soy Sauce and Rice Wine (or Sherry);

To prepare Snow-peas, you should take a little time to remove the ‘strings’ that line the edge of the pods. This is not critical, but they are quite tough and removing them will result in a more tender and digestible vegetable.

Slice your sausage obliquely into thin sections then, slice the onion vertically into very narrow wedges and separate the ‘petals’.

The appearance and texture of the dish will be improved if you first blanch the pea pods in boiling salted water for a minute or so and then arrest the cooking process by plunging them into very cold water.

Heat a little oil over a moderate to high flame and then quickly saute the sausage slices until they throw off a little flat and darken ever so slightly.

Now add the snow-peas and saute for another  minute or so until the pods are crisp-tender and heated through.

Finally add the sugar, soy and rice wine (or sherry). You are not trying to create a sauce here (hence the small amounts of each), rather the idea is to produce a quick glaze. This will happen in just a few seconds and once the ingredients are all coated, you should serve immediately.

…