I'm here to share you with a yummy Asian Recipe that was taught to me by my Vietnamese Mother-In-Law. If you have not seen any pictures of me, I am white and my husband is Vietnamese. Now when i was first introduced to his family, i felt very inadequate because i was not Vietnamese, but his family graciously accepted me with open arms! Up until that point about 6 years ago, i had never really experienced traditional Vietnamese food, such as Pho, but it didn't take me long to fall in love with it and want to learn how to make it.
Each and every time we travelled to visit his family, i would hang out in the kitchen with all the women, taking notes on a notepad about everything they did while they were cooking. Huy's (my husband) Grandmother got quite a kick out of this, but i think i scored a few extra points with the family, because i wanted to learn how to cook their food at home. They would even take me to the Asian Grocery store and tell me what brands to buy, and how to shop to cook Vietnamese food. So, although i am white, i have had some great traditional teachers and feel very confident in bringing this recipe to you.
Before i get started, here is a picture of what they will look like when completed.
Let's get started!
1. You need to soak the mung beans for at least 2 hours before you cook them. You can also soak the sweet rice if you prefer, but you do not have too.
Here is a picture of the sweet rice that I use as well as what the Mung beans look like.
2. After you have soaked the mung bean, you need to cook it. For mung bean the typical ratio is 1 cup of mung bean to 3 cups of water, however i have found you do not need as much water when you soak them before hand, so try 1 cup of the soaked mung bean to 1-2 cups water at most. I prefer to cook mine in the rice cooker, the same way you would cook rice.
3. After you have cooked the mung bean it's time to cook the sweet rice. Sweet rice is 1 cup to 1 and 1/2 cup water. I do that in the rice cooker as well. You will typically need a ton of sweet rice for this, so i will usually cook up almost a whole bag, so it's good to get that started first.
* Both of these can be cooked on the stovetop, using the same rice to water ratio, you just want to be sure to crack the lid on top of the rice when it is boiling.
4. While you are cooking the rice and mung bean, you can start cooking the Ground Pork in the skillet. You can cook as much as you would like, i usually do between 1 pound and 1 and 1/2 pound. Also with the ground pork add 2-3 stalks of chopped green onions, and season with fish sauce when the meat is cooked. Here is the fish sauce that i use.
5. Now that you have the meat mixture all cooked, take it off the heat, and let sit. Meanwhile, you need to take the cooked mung brand and smash it up, so it looks like mashed potatoes. Once that is finished combine the meat mixture with the mung bean mixture, and then form into small balls.
6. You are half way there! Next you need to take a package of Glutinous Rice Flour, and mix it with a little water until it turns almost into a paste. (Side Note: I always put in a package of chopped spinach for extra nutrition value, i just didn't have any on hand. You need one package of chopped spinach for each package of flour you use). You don't want to get it too wet though, almost like a playdoh consistency.
7. Now that you have the flour into the consistency of playdoh, you want to take a piece and flatten it out with your hands, and then add the mung bean/pork mixture into the middle.
8. Next wrap the flour mixture around the ball so that you can not see any part of the ball sticking out. If it is not completely covered, it may come apart when you put it in boiling water.
9. Once you have covered all the the pork balls with the flour mixture, it's time to cook them in boiling water. So heat up a deep pan and once it is boiling go ahead and put the balls into the boiling water. It's important that your pan is deep, because the way to know the balls are cooked is that they will rise to the top of the water and float and start spinning.
10. Once the balls are floating, take them out and put them on wax paper to cool.
11. The Last Step! In a large rectangle baking dish, lay out some of the sweet rice as a bed to put the cooked balls onto.
Set the ball onto the rice pile.
And then continue to cover it up with sweet rice, so it looks like this.
You are all finished, now put onto a plate and enjoy with Soy Sauce, here is my favorite brand.
Recipe:
1-2 pounds of Ground Pork
2-3 Stalk of Chopped Green Onions
Fish Sauce to taste
1 Package of mung bean
2-3 packages of glutinous rice flour
2-3 packages of chopped spinach
soy sauce to taste
LOTS of Sweet Rice
*Again these aren't exact because it depends how much you want to make, and it's hard to measure out the sweet rice, because it just depends how much you use, some people like a lot of it, some not so much.
FREEZER: As i mentioned earlier, i like to make a lot of these and freeze them, so to do that, Wrap each ball in plastic wrap, and then place in a ziploc freezer bag. I usually just put one per bag, since they are pretty filling, and it makes it easier.
*You will most likely need to get fish sauce, mung bean, rice flour, soy sauce, and sweet rice as a local Asian Grocery store, but everything else will be found at a traditional grocery store.
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