Keelung Pig Liver Sausage

Pig liver sausage is a bai-cai (cold-cut platter) item unique to Keelung's Xiao-San Road, made by seasoning pork liver and ground pork before stuffing it into sausage casing. At an old stall on Xiao-San Road, the glass case holds a few dark-red sausages that look noticeably different from ordinary pork sausages — the cross-section is dense, the color deeper, with a clearly visible liver grain. The cook fries them until the outside caramelizes, slices them into thick rounds, and plates them with scallions and a drizzle of garlic soy sauce. One bite delivers a smooth, dense texture with the distinctive iron-tinged aroma of pork liver, with no off-smell. This is the pig liver sausage that has filled Keelung's Xiao-San Road with fragrance for over seventy years.

The technique for making pig liver sausage was brought to Keelung by Cantonese immigrants; the Keelung version is made fresh rather than air-dried in the traditional Cantonese style. Pig liver sausage has been sold in the Xiao-San Road area for over 70 years, and Da Guan Yuan inside Ren'ai Market — which sells only pig liver sausage and salty rice ball soup — has operated for more than 60 years, making it one of the few remaining stalls in Keelung still producing this dish.

What is pig liver sausage?

Pig liver sausage is a specialty sausage unique to Keelung, adapted from Cantonese liver sausage. Fresh pork liver is minced and combined with ground pork at an appropriate lean-to-fat ratio, along with fried shallots, five-spice, rice wine, sugar, and salt, then stuffed into pork casing and air-dried or cold-aged. Sliced after cooking, it can be eaten cold, pan-fried, or steamed. The color is darker than regular sausage; the cut surface is dense with a slightly granular texture. The iron aroma of the liver is distinct but not off-putting; the flavor is savory and mildly sweet with the fragrance of fried shallots. Compared to the sweeter, softer Cantonese-style version, the Keelung variant has a more pronounced saltiness and five-spice note, bringing it closer to Taiwanese palates. It is a bai-cai (cold-cut platter) item unique to Keelung, almost never found in other Taiwanese cities.

Why Xiao-San Road in Keelung? Xiao-San Road is close to Keelung Harbor and on the periphery of Miaokou — a second street-food cluster that formed from the Japanese colonial period through the early post-war era, drawing harbor laborers, fishermen, and market vendors. Pig liver sausage was brought to Keelung by Cantonese immigrants and took root on Xiao-San Road. Over more than seventy years of flavor adjustment, it became a distinctive cold-cut item unique to Keelung. Today, the old Xiao-San Road stalls still make it by hand using traditional methods, with limited daily quantities that sell out and close. Da Guan Yuan and other old shops on the same street also carry it. Note that this dish is found on Xiao-San Road, not at the core of Miaokou — tourists frequently go to the wrong place. Local Keelung people eating a cold-cut platter often order a portion of pig liver sausage alongside beer: a classic port-city drinking snack.

How to eat it like a local

Local knowledge

Information compiled from the Keelung City Government Department of Tourism and City Marketing and large-volume public reviews, with sponsored content filtered out. Photos to be replaced with channel-exclusive material after Dio's on-site shoot.