Spicy Salad of Boiled Pork Sausage (ยำหมูยอ)

One of my guilty pleasures is a plate of warm jasmine rice topped with slices of Vietnamese-style boiled pork sausage, seared to a crisp on the outside, and a generous drizzling of homemade Thai Sriracha sauce. Not much nutrient; lots of satisfaction, especially when I can get high quality pork sausages.

Not all brands are great; some are truly awful (and it’s not like my standard is that high …). This one you see here, for example, has great texture but absolutely no flavor. The only thing to do is to yam it, i.e. turn it into a spicy Thai salad. You can’t coax any flavor into the sausage itself; it’s a lost cause. You can, however, make the most of the uncooperative sausage by tossing it with fresh summer on-the-vine tomatoes at their peak, sweet Vidalia onions, some crunchy celery, and the Thai refreshing lime-fish sauce-chilli dressing.

Have this as an appetizer with a cold pale ale, or serve it as an entrée with rice.

Spicy Salad of Boiled Pork Sausage – Yam Mu Yo (ยำหมูยอ)
Serves 4
Printable Version

1 1/2 pounds (700g) Vietnamese-style boiled pork sausage
Six 2-inch tomatoes (250g), quartered
1/4 large Vidalia onion or any sweet onion¹(about 130g), sliced thinly lengthwise
2 large ribs of celery (about 88g), cut into 1/2-inch slices crosswise
2-3 tablespoons of lime juice, more or less to taste
2-3 tablespoons of fish sauce, more or less to taste
4-5 Thai bird’s eye chilies, more or less to taste, finely chopped
1/2 cup (12g) cilantro leaves

• Slice the pork sausage into 1/4-inch thick, bite-sized pieces. (These sausage rolls come in different sizes. This one you see here measures 3.5 inches in diameter, so I had to quarter it.) Transfer the sausage slices to a large mixing bowl.
• Add the onion, tomatoes, celery, and chilies to the mixing bowl.
• Season with lime juice and fish sauce, toss, and correct seasoning as needed. I’d start out with a tablespoon each of lime juice and fish sauce since the flavors of the tomatoes and the pork sausage vary. You can always add more as needed. For this salad, I don’t add any sugar, because the tomatoes are already very sweet.
• Top with cilantro leaves and serve immediately.

¹ If you can’t find sweet onions, use a yellow, white, or even red onion. You may want to cut it into thin slices as instructed and soak the onion slices in iced water for 10-15 minutes to get some of the raw flavor out of them. Be sure to drain the onion slices very well and pat them dry before adding them to the salad.