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Vietnamese Steamed Rice Cake | Banh Beo

Vietnamese Steamed Rice Cake | Banh Beo

By: Cindy Lam Lorimer
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings: 75 pieces
Banh Beo is a traditional Vietnamese dish consisting of small, steamed rice cakes topped with ground shrimp, crispy fried shallots and green onions, and then served with a fish dipping sauce. Incredibly easy to make but very impressive looking!

Ingredients

Banh Beo Mix:

  • 2 cups rice flour
  • 2 Tbsp tapioca starch
  • ½ tsp kosher salt
  • 2 ½ cups water
  • ½ cup coconut milk

Topping:

  • 1 lb shrimp, with shell on
  • 1 Tbsp avocado oil , or any neutral oil
  • 1 leek, white part only, chopped
  • 1 cup carrots, peeled, finely chopped
  • ½ cup dried wood ear mushroom, soaked in warm water for 15 min, then finely chopped
  • 1 tsp kosher salt

Garnish:

  • 1 cup avocado oil, or any neutral oil
  • 4 large shallots, peeled, thinly sliced
  • 10 green onions, thinly sliced

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, add rice flour, tapioca starch and salt.
  • Mix dry ingredients together, then add water and coconut milk.
  • Using a whisk, stir until batter is smooth and there are no more lumps.
  • In a frying pan, on medium high heat, add avocado oil, or any cooking oil, and pan fry shrimp with shell on until they are pink and cooked.
  • Once it cools, peel shrimp and do a rough chop on them.
  • Place chopped shrimp in an electric mixer and pulse until they’re in fine bits. Set aside.
  • Brush ramekins with oil.
  • Place ramekins in hot steamer and heat them for 3 minutes.
  • After 3 minutes, pour banh beo mix onto each oiled ramekin, about 1 ½ tablespoon. I use a squeeze bottle to transfer the mix onto a ramekin.
  • Let it steam for 5 mins until the Banh beo is nice and firm, not too hard and not sticky.
  • Once done, set aside and repeat the process. If you don't have enough ramekins, wait until Banh Beo cools, then take a butter knife, scrape and remove Banh Beo from ramekin and place on a plate (like food image).
  • For the topping, heat a pan on medium high heat, add 1 tablespoon of oil.
  • Add leek and sauté for 30 seconds.
  • Add carrots, shrimp and mushroom to the pan.
  • Add 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.
  • Stir fry for a few minutes until carrots soften a little and the flavors are mixed in.
  • To make the fried shallots, heat 1 cup of oil in a small saucepan.
  • Add shallots and fry until they're right about to turn light brown.
  • Remove the saucepan from the heat.
  • Remove the shallots from the oil and put them on a paper towel lined plate.
  • While the oil is still hot, away from the heat, add your thinly sliced green onions.
  • Add a pinch of salt to green onion oil.
  • Garnish each Banh beo with a tablespoon of the topping mix, green onions in oil and fried shallots.
  • You can either eat the Banh beo directly from the ramekin by pouring the fish dipping sauce onto the ramekin, or you can wait for the ramekins to cool, then scoop out the Banh beo and stack them up nicely onto a serving plate.

Nutrition

Serving: 1piece | Calories: 55kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 10mg | Sodium: 56mg | Potassium: 39mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 0.3g | Vitamin A: 321IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 8mg | Iron: 0.2mg

Equipment

  • steamer
  • ramekins
  • squeeze bottle