"Nam" anyone?

[JollyJohn]

Had Bacillus cereus food poisoning a few years ago from cold rice in a salad - not very nice!
2 weeks in an isolation ward of the hospital on a drip, and unable to go more than 15mins without having one end or the other over the loo.
Before that I often reheated rice from the takeaway etc, but not any more

Think I'll skip this one

The problem there is, you don't know how long the cooked rice had been hanging around in the Chinky take-away, or how many times it had been re-heated before you bought it. Some of those establishments are well dodgy.

Anyway, I've just finished rolling up the mixture in cling film, and popped into a sealable bag. Got some pics, will post tomorrow.

John.

[wheels]

If the pics don't appear, I for one ain't making this one!



Phil

[JollyJohn]

Ingredients: 300g. minced pork shoulder, 150g. cold basmati rice (cooked last night & left in the fridge), 100g. pig skin, 5 cloves garlic and 1/2 tsp. sea salt.








Will leave them at room temp for a couple of days.

Right then, that's it 'til Monday night. Haven't made my mind up how I'm going to cook them yet, any suggestions?

Anyway, I'm off now, got to make a will.

John.

[RodinBangkok]

Ingredients: 300g. minced pork shoulder, 150g. cold basmati rice (cooked last night & left in the fridge), 100g. pig skin, 5 cloves garlic and 1/2 tsp. sea salt.

John.

Your definitely playing with fire here, two things that I see from your formulations is salt content I believe is way too low, should be closer to 1 Tbs and I've never heard of any naem made with other than glutinous rice. Almost all the fermented rice dishes, both chinese and Thai I've ever seen use glutinous rice. I'm no expert on rice fermentation, but I believe this is for a reason. I'm also no expert on the history of the dishes from Isaan, but Yam Naem is a Thai salad made with fermented glutinous rice, and I can't help but think the Naem sausage is a close cousin to this recipe. Lastly humidity will play a part in the fermentation also. Your looking for Lactic acid fermentation, and your level of salt will play a key role, and I believe perhaps the glutinous rice also. Properly fermented meat will smell different from rotten, so do a lot of smelling before you taste.

[JollyJohn]

When I cook rice I use quit a lot of salt, so there is a bit more than it looks. I will check some other recipes for salt levels, I can always add some more and re-pack. I only put them together a couple of hours ago. I looked in our Asian wholesalers today, couldn't find any glutinous rice! I will certainly do a lot of smelling, and I'm not worried if I have to bin it.

Thanks, John.

[grisell]

I would definitely recommend using a lactic acid starter culture here and ferment at a high temperature (>25 C/77 F) in order for pH to decrease fast.

Otherwise, I don't see a problem with the recipe or the salt content. Some Swedish sausages (prinskorv, isterband) are made with the same method, and I've made both of them several times. Where the Thai use rice, Swedes use barley or cream as a nutriment for the Lactobacilli. Except for the spices, the sausages are quite similar. My ex-girlfriend from Northern Thailand always remarked that isterband and prinskorv reminded her of the sausages from her native district.

[JollyJohn]

I will see what this is like tomorrow night, if I have the slightest doubt, I'll bin it! Its less than £2 worth of pork, so no big deal. Ok, I think I probably rushed into this one, if I have another go, I'll use some of my Bettastart, and ferment at a higher temp, as Grissel suggests.

[wheels]

John

You'll find a bit of info about the science behind it etc here:

http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-recipes/nham

HTH

Phil

[JollyJohn]

Thanks Phil. I use their site a lot, got the book as well, just didn't think to look.

I'm not fermenting at the correct temp, so I guess it's doomed. I'm using the curing cabinet for smoked Polish at the moment, otherwise I'd up the temp, and pop the nam in. Hey-ho.

[HKDave]

I should have clarified my words "at Thai room temperature" in the recipe upthread. In the North in the cooler season that means 30-35C during the day, but significantly cooler at night.

The Wedliny recipe is a bit confusing. It says "If made traditionally (without starter culture)... Increase fermentation temperature to 30º C (86º F)." But that's the same temperature as in their 'non-traditional' recipe, not an increase. I do like their non-traditional use of stater and sugar, however; that makes this less of an adventure.

Rod, I suspect most recipes call for sticky rice because this is a Northern food and they like sticky rice up there. But after rice is cooked (which kills any inherent bacteria), cooled and mixed with the other ingredients, outside bacteria - good or bad - should happily colonize either sticky or regular rice.

John, if you want banana leaves in Cheltenham, try seducing one of the staff at the Thai Emerald restaurant, who have some dishes on their menu that use them. If that's not tempting enough for them, maybe offer some naem in exchange?

[grisell]

[---]
But after rice is cooked (which kills any inherent bacteria), cooled and mixed with the other ingredients, outside bacteria - good or bad - should happily colonize either sticky or regular rice.
[---]

Just a remark:

Cooking the rice kills the bacteria and eliminates any toxin, but it does not kill Bacillus cereus spores. When the spores start to grow after cooking, if conditions are favourable, toxin will be formed, possibly resulting in food poisoning.

This is prevented by fast cooling of the cooked rice, and refigeration. Whether B cereus toxin formation could be a risk in fermented sausages, I don't know. I don't know how sensitive they are to acidity.

[saucisson]

The only time i have knowingly poisoned anyone was with poorly reheated rice, fortunately it had such a high dose of whatever it was it came back up within 5 minutes of my son eating it, with no further effects.

When I say knowingly, I don't mean deliberately

[JollyJohn]

John, if you want banana leaves in Cheltenham, try seducing one of the staff at the Thai Emerald restaurant, who have some dishes on their menu that use them. If that's not tempting enough for them, maybe offer some naem in exchange?

Phil, do you know The Thai Emerald? I've not been there, but there is a large Thai supermarket opposite, a Pakistani supermarket a few doors away and a Bangladeshi supermarket just down the road.

I had a sniff of the naem a few minutes ago, smelled ok, mostly of garlic, not surprising, given the quantity in there. I will sample some tomorrow morning, after stuffing some sausages. I'm making some of your "not Lincolnshire", and some "Lautrec" sausage, the latter will be lightly smoked. I will have some smoked "lautrec" with petit sel (in the fridge, curing now) with lentils.

If I should not survive the Naem, my worst fear is that my wife will sell all my stuff for the price I told her I bought it for!!

[wheels]

John

The reference to The Thai Emerald was HKDave's not mine. The 'Not Lincolnshire' isn't my recipe either, I wish it was! It'd be one to be proud of! I think that the final adaption was Oddley's, but it came originally from UK Butcher Phil Groth who gave it to another expert curer, sausage-maker and forum member, Parson Snows.

Don't eat my Lautrec sausage too soon after the Nam, else we won't know which has made you ill!

Phil

[JollyJohn]

No worries Phil, I'm not shuffling off this mortal coil just yet.

Sorry, don't know why I thought it was your quote.

I sampled some of the "not Lincolnshire" mix at lunch time, very nice, good balance of salt, spice & herb, without drowning the pork, didn't have to adjust anything. I'll be making a larger batch soon.

I'll update on the naem tomorrow.

John.