One of my favorite as a child....Banh Gio

This is one of the many yummy breakfast dishes I remember eating as a child. It's very traditional Vietnamese with simple ingredients all wrapped up in a banana leaf and steamed to perfection. Most of you will probably have never tried this since it is a little mysterious when you see these little pyramids wrapped in banana leaves in an Asian grocery store. But hopefully after reading this and seeing what it's all about, you will be curious enough to try it.

So what is, is a a mixture of rice flour and constarch/tapioca flour with a ground pork filling....It looks like it would be complicated to make but once you break it down step by step, it really is not that intimidating but rather simple.

Start with soaking 1 cup of dried woodear mushrooms in warm water

before:

after:

Next chop up 1 medium sized onion, 1/2 jicama into small pearl sized bits.

In a medium sized pot, add 1 tbs vegetable oil on medium high heat and stir in onions and cook for about 2 minutes, then add  2lbs of ground pork and cook until it is done. Season with 2 1/2 tsp of chicken bouillon powder, 1 tsp of pepper, 1 tsp of salt, 2 tsp of sugar. Next cut up the wood ear mushrooms into smaller size bits (1cm) and add to the meat along with the jicama. Remove from heat and measure 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and chop up 4-5 green onions thinly and stir into the mixture. 

this will be your filling.

Next step is to make the starch component of this steamed dumpling.....the ratio is 1:2/6 with 1 cup of rice flour to 2 cups of tapioca flour/or cornstach and 6 cups of cold water. You can also buy the premixed flour package at the Asian grocery store. Measure out the flour and slowly add the water in a nonstick pot. To add flavoring, I like to use 3-4 tsp of chicken bouillon powder to the flour mixture and 1 tsp of salt. Adding 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil will also prevent the mixture from sticking to the pot.

Start cooking the flour mixture on medium high heat and stirring constantly with a pair of chopsticks or wooden spoon. Mixture will start to thicken rapidly starting with clumps....but don't worry, just continue stirring constantly and it will start to form a consistent paste. Once there is no longer any liquid left, turn off stove and remove from heat while continue to stir. Next prepare your banana leaves by washing them and blanching them in hot water so they are more pliable. Then cut them into large square and fold into a triangle pyramid. There is a good tutorial video on youtube on how to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phjpeQonYKc

I don't like to use saran (plastic wrap) during steaming so I just use the banana leaf by itself and it works just fine.

Once you are ready, spoon about 1-2 tbs of the thick pasty flour mixture into the pyramid (upside down) making a well in the middle, then scoop in enough filling to fill up the well

Then add another 1-2 tbs of flour paste to cover the filling. fold up the banana leaf into a square bottom and place in steamer tray.

Steam dumplings for 20 minutes and then remove from heat and let it rest for 5-10 minutes before serving. And there you have it, a yummy delicious breakfast dumpling for the family to enjoy. I made this for breakfast this past weekend and wasn't too sure if my girls would like it but everyone loved it including my husband. I really enjoy eating mine with a little bit of siracha sauce and the girls like to eat theirs with a few drops of soy sauce. 

Nom Nom Nom.......simple ingredients but oh so good!!! Enjoy!!!