Giò lụa or Chả lụa is a Vietnamese food, also known as Vietnamese ham

Ham

Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...

 or Vietnamese sausage

Sausage

A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...

. The term giò lụa is part of the northern Vietnamese's dialect while chả lụa is part of the southern Vietnamese dialect.

Production and consumption

Traditionally, chả lụa is made of lean pork

Pork

Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....

, potato starch

Potato starch

Potato starch is starch extracted from potatoes. The cells of the root tubers of the potato plant contain starch grains . To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed; the starch grains are released from the destroyed cells...

, and nước mắm (fish sauce

Fish sauce

Fish sauce is a condiment that is derived from fish that have been allowed to ferment. It is an essential ingredient in many curries and sauces. Fish sauce is a staple ingredient in numerous cultures in Southeast Asia and the coastal regions of East Asia, and features heavily in Thai and Vietnamese...

). There are also the variant types made out of beef instead. The pork has to be pounded until it becomes pasty; it cannot be chopped or ground as the meat would still be fibrous, dry, and crumbly. Near the end of the pounding period a few spoonfuls of nước mắm are added to the meat for flavour, but salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, ground black pepper

Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...

, and sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

 can also be added. The meat is now called giò sống, meaning "raw sausage," and can be used in other dishes as well.

The mixture is then wrapped tightly in banana leaves

Banana leaf

Banana leaf is the leaf of the Banana plant. It is used for various functions, such as for decorative elements, wrappings, plate mat, and employed in cooking method....

 into a cylindrical shape and boiled. If the banana leaf is not wrapped tightly and water leaks inside while it is being boiled, the sausage will be ruined. The sausage has to be submerged vertically into boiling water, and typically for a 1 kg sausage it takes an hour to cook. When making chả lụa by hand, a common way to tell if it is well cooked is to throw the sausage onto a hard surface; if it bounces, the sausage is good.

The most well-known chả lụa comes from the village Ước Lễ, Thanh Oai

Thanh Oai

Thanh Oai is a rural district of Hanoi in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam.The village of Ước Lễ is famous for its chả lụa....

, province Hà Tây, northern Vietnam, where people pride themselves as professional chả lụa makers. When cooking chả lụa, the villagers of Ước Lễ light a stick of incense

Incense

Incense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term "incense" refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces. It is used in religious ceremonies, ritual purification, aromatherapy, meditation, for creating a mood, and for...

 with the length equal to the circumference of the sausage's cross section; they believe that when the incense has completely burned, the sausage is well cooked.

Correctly-made chả lụa can be stored at room temperature

Room temperature

-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...

 for about one week.

During the initial wave of Vietnamese immigrants to the United States

Vietnamese American

A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....

 in the mid-1970s, banana leaves were difficult to find and, thus, Vietnamese chefs substituted aluminum foil for banana leaves, a habit that continues today.

The sausage is normally sliced and eaten with bánh cuốn, bánh mì

Bánh mì

Bánh mì or bánh mỳ is a Vietnamese term for all kinds of bread. Bread, or more specifically the baguette, was introduced by the French during its colonial period. The bread most commonly found in Vietnam is single serve and resembles a torpedo, therefore the term bánh mì is synonymous with this...

, or xôi

Xôi

Xôi is a sweet or savory Vietnamese dish made from glutinous rice and other ingredients. Although it is often served as a dessert, in many mountainous areas in Vietnam, people eat xôi as a main dish.-Sweet:...

, or braised in fish sauce and black pepper with other meat dishes. If fried, it is called chả chiên.

Giò lụa is also popular in Thailand where it is known as mu yo . It is often eaten in the form of a spicy salad or as a snack on its own.

See also

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Butifarra Chinese sausage Chinese sausage Chinese sausage is a generic term referring to the many different types of sausages originating in China. It is commonly known by its Cantonese name "Lap Cheong" or "Lap Chong" .-Varieties:... Chipolata Chipolata A chipolata is a type of fresh sausage, believed to have been created in France and similar to an Italian sausage but usually prepared as a very thin, breakfast sausage-style link, often grilled rather than pan-fried or poached... Currywurst Currywurst Currywurst is a fast-food dish of German origin consisting of hot pork sausage cut into slices and seasoned with curry ketchup, regularly consisting of ketchup or tomato paste blended with generous amounts of curry powder, or a ready-made ketchup-based sauce seasoned with curry and other spices... Fuet Fuet Fuet is a Catalan thin, cured, dry sausage of pork meat in a pork gut. The most famous is made in the comarca of Osona and is also known as Vic fuet . 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It is nowadays available in many stores across Finland, but is held in the position of local delicacy and speciality of Tampere... Pølsevogn Pølsevogn Pølsevogn is a Danish word literally meaning "sausage wagon".These hot dog stands can be found in most municipal areas of Denmark, and even in parks. They are essentially hand-pulled carts with room for one person inside making the hot dogs. Sausage-wagon food is popular among tourists and Danes... Rookworst Rookworst Rookworst is a type of Dutch sausage in which ground meat is mixed with spices and salt and stuffed into a casing . Rookworst is a traditional ingredient in stamppot... Salami Salami Salami is cured sausage, fermented and air-dried meat, originating from one of a variety of animals. Historically, salami has been popular among Southern European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for periods of up to 10 years, supplementing a possibly meager or inconsistent... Soujouk Soujouk Sujuk, also soudjouk is a dry, spicy sausage in Turkish cuisine eaten from the Balkans to the Middle East and Central Asia.Sujuk consists of ground meat , with various spices including cumin, sumac, garlic, salt, and red pepper, fed into a sausage casing and allowed to... Tasso Thüringer Usinger's White pudding White pudding White pudding or oatmeal pudding is a meat dish popular in Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. White pudding is very similar to black pudding, but does not include blood. Consequently, it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread, and oatmeal formed into the shape of...