腊味 – phonetically ‘larp may’ is a Cantonese word for waxed-taste meaning preserved meat. In Mandarin, it’s pronounced as ‘lark way’. With the arrival of winter in China, Chinese will make preserved meat (and also preserved vegetables, but that’s another story) for the winter.
There are two types of 腊味 in the market – the northern type and the southern (mainly Cantonese) type. The northern ones are known to go through smoking process while the southern ones are simply hanged under the sun coupled with cold, dry wind.
Common 腊味 is 腊肠. Made from minced meat, rose-syrup is added and the minced meat is pushed into a coating (used to be made from intestine). Some are long and thin, some types short and fat. They are then dried.
A good 腊肠 should be firm to hard – its coat/sac not indentable. It should emit a pleasant sweetish smell and not stale. The meat inside should be chopped meat (切肉肠) and not mashed. Some 腊肠 is ‘extra lean’ and has less fat – 加瘦肠. But nothing beats the joy of digging out the transparent fatty part from 腊肠 and put into your mouth. 😛
腊肠 is best cooked with rice. You may soak the 腊肠 in water or warm water for a few minutes if you have difficulty in peeling off the coat/sac but peeling it under running tap water usually does the job. It is then cooked with rice by laying it on the rice grain and water. The process of cooking will soak it up with rice water. It is not encouraged to slice it open before it’s cooked because you’ll loose a lot of its taste into the water and fragrant into the steam. Some people like to slice it and fry it briefly in boiling oil (拉油) to make it extra crispy.
A special type of preserved meat 瘦肉饼 is minced meat without the coating/sac. It is usually sold in big thick slices measuring 4 inches x 2 inches. I won’t encourage you to get this type.
The other type is 润肠 (Cantonese : yoon chiong) or 肝肠 (Mandarin : gan chang) made of liver, usually duck liver. But since some idiots started to misunderstand about hepatitis, lots of people has stayed away from liver products. My condolences, really. A good 润肠 is not hard. Its coating should be firm but indentable. It should not smell stale.
润肠 is cooked differently from 腊肠. The skin should not be peeled off prior to cooking. It should be steamed in whole above boiling water for 15 to 20 minutes instead of cooked together with rice.
Another type is preserved duck 腊鸭 (Cantonese : larp arp), usually the thigh/drumstick part. Instead of steaming it or cooking it together with rice, one is advised to boil it, preferably in rice water, for 15 to 20 minutes.
薰鸭 (Mandarin : xun ya) is smoked duck, usually sold in whole. 拉油送酒 (brief fry and eaten with alcohol) is best.
腊肉 or preserved meat, which is NOT 瘦肉饼, is strips of raw meat (桂花肉) preserved and smoked. Steamed and sliced, it will show you clear layers of transparent fat. My favourite!
Have you tried the larp may fhan from wingz yet? He has mixed up 瘦肉饼 and 腊肉. Anyway, you can try adding some sliced shitake mushroom, oyster sauce (instead of chicken stock granules), groundnut, one or two pieces of preserved dried oyster. rice wine or even a sprinkle of sesame seed or a dash of sesame seed oil. Some use pulut (sticky glutinous) rice instead of normal rice. I personally prefer mine to be more simple than with all these complicated ingredients.
For the ‘larp may’, some people prefers to cook them separately and lay them all around on top of the rice (in a pattern) instead of mixing them into the rice. And ideally, ‘larp may farn’, though more laborious, is cooked individually in 盅 (some Chinese porcelain container) or claypot instead of en masse in a rice cooker.
Go and try out wingz’s larp may fhan and start developing the art of appreciation to the unbeatable larp may culture.
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