Banh Gio is something I LOVED eating growing up, and still occasionally do. It’s soft and delicate, super easy to eat, and savory! I’ve asked my parents and other older folks what babies generally eat in Vietnam in the boonies where there’s no Gerber ready made foods available and baby led weaning isn’t really a thing. They all told me about ‘chao bot’ which is pretty much cooked rice flour porridge. Rice is a staple, and rice flour is just ground up rice turned to flour. When you cook it with water you get this rice paste. You can choose to cook it with different broths to add more flavor and nutrition, and its quite delicious for both babies and older folks. Perfect for those with no teeth! 😀
Banh Gio is a yummy more advanced adaptation of this ‘chao bot’. My first boyfriend once told me he loved chao bot, and I had no idea what it was, but here we are… 15 years later, and I’ve finally connected the dots. Chao bot is really easy for anyone to eat (physically easy). You don’t need teeth, and it readily almost dissolves in your mouth as you work through it so its a contender as yummy ‘sick people’ food 🙂
Recipe for the filling:
– 1 lb ground pork
– 3/4 bag of dried fungus (nam meo) hydrated and cut up (we cut it up extra small for the babes)
– 1 large shallot diced
– 3 cloves garlic minced
– Fish sauce, S&P to taste, and some mushroom seasoning powder if that’s your thing
Instructions for the filling:
1. Saute your shallots in some oil. After a few minutes add your minced garlic and saute until fragrant.
2. Add your pork filling and cook through, season to taste, add your rehydrated and diced fungus.
Recipe for the rice paste:
– 1:2 ratio of rice and tapioca flour.
– Twice as much cooled pork or chicken broth (lightly salted)
– 1-2 tablespoon neutral oil (like avocado) for every 3 cups of flour. If you’re making chicken broth, replace the oil with the skimmed chicken fat 🙂
Example: 1 cup rice flour, 2 cup tapioca flour (3 cups total of flour), 6 cups chicken broth
** For this specific recipe with the filling, I mixed 2 bags of tapioca flour and 1 bag of rice flour then I removed 1 bag worth of flour for later use. I measured each bag to be around 3.5 cups of flour (roughly) so I added 14 cups of broth. This made 17 medium sized banh gios.
Instructions for the rice paste:
1. Combine your rice/tapioca flour mixture with your cooled broth and mix until homogenized. Make sure that your broth is cooled. You don’t want to cook the mixture until it’s completely mixed and homogenized.
2. Over medium heat stir your mixture continuously until it becomes thick (think Beyonce bahaha). Remove from heat once its completely thick even if its not homogenized and continue to mix. The residual heat will homogenize it if you continue mixing/stirring. I think I’ve used the word homogenized enough today…
You can assemble this banh by using banana leaves, but oh lordy is that arduous labor if you’re doing this by yourself. You have to wash the thawed banana leaves, then dunk them in hot boiling water to sanitize and clean them once more, wipe the leaves clean and dry, trim the ends, cut them into square 8 by 8 inch pieces and then you can use them all awhile cursing about all the broken odd and end pieces of the banana leaf that were supposed to stay whole.
If you feel up to this task, follow the instructions below once you’ve already prepared them as stated above.
Instructions for using banana leaves:
**for my 2 bag total of flour and 1 lb pork mixture, I used 3 frozen bags of banana leaves
1. Place one 8 by 8 inch plastic wrap on your work surface.
2. Layer one piece of 8 x 8 banana leaf shiny side down, followed with another piece shiny side down with the banana leaf striations/lines going the opposite side from the first layer, and follow by one more 8 x 8 this time shiny side up. If you’re as lucky as I am with a bunch of broken leaves, the second layer can be created by combining broken leaves that are the same side up and with their lines/striations going the same way.
3. Fold your plastic wrap and 3 layers of leaves into a triangle (bottom corner going up to the top opposite corner).
4. Fold your triangle in half to be a smaller triangle.
5. Open up your triangle and pick a side to make your banh (right or left side)
6. Put a glob of paste (1/3 or 1/2 cup) and push it down to the triangle top. Add 1/3 cup of filling and spoon in paste to cover.
7. Fold your ends together..I should of taken a video..But youtube if this is all confusing. The bottom of your banh gio should be a square shape. lol
8. Steam for 40 minutes
CHEAT– TIME EFFICIENT WAY
1. In a small one serving heat safe mold (could be glass, ceramic bowls, silicone cupcake molds), place a scoop of your rice paste, a scoop of your meat mixture, cover with the rice paste.
2. Steam for 30-40 minutes.
** you can also opt to make ONE LARGE banh gio and cut it up to serve. Nobody’s got the right to judge you 🙂
Banana leaves take a lot of time, but can be prepared in advance. They infuse the banh gio with a nice banana leaf flavor and give it a nice green hue, but at the end of the day, the banh gio is good with or without it!
Mila has 5 teeth, but she happily gobbled this down without using any of her 5 teeth. They’re yummy straight from the steamer, but I personally like them after they’ve sat in the fridge for a bit.
Happy eating!