Sausage Wrapped in Sticky Rice

In this snack a charcoal-grilled sticky-rice sausage (the "large intestine") is split lengthwise to hold a Taiwanese pork sausage (the "small intestine"), then piled with pickled mustard greens, cucumber, ginger, dried radish and sauces, so each bite bursts with meat juices and the fragrance of rice, much like a Taiwanese hot dog.

The snack originated among Hakka communities around Hualien in eastern Taiwan, first a portable assembled bite for workers heading out, and from the 1990s it spread through night markets across the island, rising to rank among Taiwan's ten most famous snacks.

Grilled to order at a night-market stall and eaten by hand, diners choose their sausage flavour—garlic, black pepper or spicy—and their relishes, a classic walk-and-eat snack of Taipei's night markets.

The charred skin of the grilled sticky-rice sausage, the juicy pork sausage within and the abundance of relishes are the unmistakable marks of this snack.