This Japanese stir-fry is one of my favorites because I enjoy the sweet smoky rich flavor of chōzume.
Years ago, during a visit to San Francisco we bought a bag of hot steamed buns with an intriguing flavor. The filling included lop cheong (la chang: 臘腸): Chinese sausage. The type I buy are about 6″ long, ½” thick like wrinkled fat red sticks. When thawed they are hard like salami, but the taste is beyond my descriptive abilities.I Googled the word chōzome, and very few articles appear—many of them related to my blog or to Ms. Shimbo’s The Japanese Kitchen. It seems that chōzome is a Japanese word for sausage in general, literally “stuffed guts.” Japanese word for “sausages”, ソーセージ
For the squeamish among us, it’s best not to think deeply about that.
Stir-Fried Rice with Okra and Chōzome
based on Kikurage Cha-hab page 116
serves two to three
- ¼ cup simmered dried shiitake
see note in recipe below - ½ cup blanched okra, cut into slices
- 1 small sweet red pepper, roasted,
skinned and cut into strips - 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
- 2 ¼ ounces chozume (Chinese sausage)
or other firm sausage, cubed - 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 ½ cups day-old cooked rice,
broken up by hand - ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon tamari
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
I found a small package of the simmered shiitake in my “clean-the-freezer” mode, but you could use kikurage (soaked) or dried shiitake (soaked), or for crunch try lotus root or water chestnuts. Whichever choice you make, cut into small strips or squares.
Heat a wok over moderately high heat, and add 2 Tablespoons of the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add the eggs. Cook the eggs until they are 80% done, giving several large stirs during the cooking. Transfer the eggs to a plate.
Reduce the heat to medium, and add 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil and the sesame oil to the wok. Add the sausage, and cook it, stirring occasionally, until it is crisp. Add the garlic, and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the sliced okra, pepper, to the pan. Stir over high heat for a minute. Add the rice, and cook it until it’s heated through, stirring thoroughly. Return the cooked egg to the wok, break it into small pieces with your spatula, and toss it thoroughly with the other ingredients. Season the mixture to taste with salt, tamari, and pepper. Serve.
Similar recipes in previous posts:
Stir-Fried Rice with Black Kikurage
Kikurage Yaki-Udon
Freeze-Dried Stir-Fried Tofu
Tess's Japanese Kitchen 
You sure are on the okra tour these days huh. I never really liked the chinese 臘腸. My mom uses them to cook from time to time, I always shiver when I smell its strong scent coming from the kitchen. She sometimes puts a couple slices in the rice cooker to give the rice extra flavor (the rice really gets all 臘腸-y) or she sometimes steams slices together with chinese salty fish with thinly sliced ginger (and some oil and soy sauce I think). It’s a very pungent dish but typically chinese (which they dont serve at the local chinese). Using the same (smoking?) technique, they also have 臘鸭 (duck) and 臘鸡 (chicken). They’re quite salty too.
Last of okra for a while—still have a crush, but the first infatuation has cooled. Ah!
I’m surprised that you wouldn’t like Chinese pork sausage! It is distinctive, and I wouldn’t want to eat it often, but It does add a lot of flavor to this dish. Like your mom cooking it with rice.
I don’t know how popular Chinese sausage is in Japan? Hiroko Shimbo who wrote the book I cook from mostly grew up with more European and international education than the average.
Thanks for the info re duck and chix sausage: I’ve not seen them here, but I don’t buy Chinese foods very often.
Is your mom Chinese, well travelled, and or interested in Chinese foods, or all of the previous?
≥^!^≤
PS I have lost track of the link to your blog about photography. You still writing in it?
Yea don’t really like it, like a lot of western born Chinese :)
Ah I thought chōzome and 臘腸 were the same. But I guess chōzome is just regular (?) sausage.
Actually the duck and chicken version are not a sausage, the use the same (or similar) preparation technique but are usually sold like a thigh or whole piece.
And my mom is Malaysian and she loves to cook all kinds of cuisines (though mostly asian). One of her specialties is Malaysian curry, its sooo good. (none of that Japanese ‘curry’ stuff haha)
This is sort of what the sausage I use looks like:
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/auc-charcuteriekoide/5010/
I searched 『ソーセージ』on Google, but not reading or speaking Japanese I am not sure they are the same. Sort of like sweet pepperoni.
When I google chōzome very few articles come up. I think the word is usually translated into English as ‘Chinese sausage.’
You are very lucky to have a mom who is such an adventurous cook! I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to eat Malaysian foods at all! I’m sure her curry have a more definite flavor than the Japanese version.
I hear you about the multiple blogs. My second one is very rarely updated: lost its focus. (or I did)
oh the other link, i’m still writing it, though I havent updated it yet, I have 3 blogs, and its hard to allocate time to each on of them. So it always goes like, I work on just one for a while, and then another one for a while :P
But here it is: http://tpata.wordpress.com/
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