Da Best Mainland Lau Lau Ever!

I've been experimenting with different ways to make lau lau that tastes like the real stuff in Hawaii. Finally I came up with this recipe that is easy to make and tastes virtually the same as the real stuff.

Da Best Mainland Lau Lau Ever!

Ingredients (approximate due to wrapping procedure):

2lb 900g medium/lean ground pork (the fatter the more authentic)
1/4 lb bacon slices  (low salt preferred to accomodate the salty fish sauce)
1 lb basa fillets
4 tbsp fish sauce (Filipino/Chinese type, the fermented anchovy salty liquid stuff)
1/2 package dried bamboo leaves (not edible, too fibrous)
3-5 bunches Swiss Chard (da best substitute of luau/taro leaves) cut the long stem off for soup
Pressure cooker or regular steamer

Procedures:

1. Boil bamboo leaves to sterilize and soften. Then let cool down for handling.
2. Mix fish sauce and ground pork.
3. Cut bacon slices to 1/2 inch length pieces.
4. Cut basa into 1/2 inch cubes.
5. Working with a few bamboo leaves at a time to prevent drying, tear wide ones into half lengthwise. Cut narrow tips off.
6. Set up pressure cooker for steaming (mine is 1/2 cup of water at the bottom, then the basket).
7. Start wrapping: wrap in swiss chard leave 1 inch ball of pork, 1 piece of fish and 1 piece of bacon. Put this on a narrow bamboo leave, shiny side up. Fold bamboo leave over from both sides and cut off excess bamboo leave. Turn sideway and roll this up in a wide bamboo leave, shiny side up. This will look like those small chicken sticky rice wrap in a Chinese dim sum restaurant.
8. Place roll carefully into steamer. Pack and stack them.
9. Turn on steamer. Pressure cooker for 1 hour, steamer for 2 hours.
10. Open the lid and serve. Discard bamboo leaves before eating.

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Supplies:
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Tim Holtz Mixed Media dies
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