Bánh Xèo: Sizzling Rice Pancake with Pork and Shrimp

YAAY MORE VIETNAMESE FOOD! Derek and I had our first introduction to bánh xèo one afternoon when we were STARVING. We'd just moved into our house here in Hoi An, and walked over to the market in hopes of finding food. We'd only ever been to the big market in the old town, which is much bigger and where the tourists go. At that big market they have food stall after food stall selling local food, so we anticipated the same at the much-more-real (read: only locals) market in our neighborhood. Not quite so.

We arrived, really truly hungry out of our minds, and were slightly disappointed to see a lack of food stalls. Had we wanted heaps of fresh meat and veggies, we were in the right place (but a few hours late), but prepared food still eluded us. We finally wandered over to one woman, seated on a mini-stool with mini-benches and other mini-stools surrounding her, as she appeared to have SOME kind of food she was serving to two other women sitting with her. We approached and asked if we could buy whatever she was cooking. We still aren't sure exactly what happened next, but we're pretty sure the two women sitting there, having just been served one bánh xèo each, got up and gave us their lunch. We tried to give it back to them, saying we could go somewhere else (by that point we gathered that there were no more bánh xèo to be made and offered), but they were insistent that we sit and eat (we presume because we were charged 2x what they would have been charged, as is usual around here).

So, we sat and ate someone else's bánh xèo, feeling guilty for stealing their lunch but knowing we couldn't say "no" and walk away, either. They showed us how to open up the pancake, insert the fresh herb mix, and roll the whole thing up in rice paper. It was delicious! We were hooked, but sadly had to go elsewhere to fill our tummies that day. Luckily, we made some of these in our cooking class {and our tummies were WAY TOO FULL by the end!}! The name bánh xèo literally means "sizzling cake" because of the loud sizzling (and oil popping) that happens when you pour the batter into the pan. I'm not sure how to get around this, but you may want to consider wearing long gloves when you cook!

The best part of bánh xèo, along with most food we've been eating lately, is the herb salad you stuff into it. It's a mixture of all sorts of greens — mint, basil, thai basil, Vietnamese coriander, something called "fish leaf," and a bunch of other greens. At home, I'd suggest any fragrant greens you can find! As for the rice paper, it will depend on what kinds you can find at home: if you only have the super-hard (will snap if you bend when dry) kind, you'll need to have warm water nearby to soften them slightly before wrapping. If you can find the thinner, more pliable kind of rice paper, use that dry. As you wrap it around the hot, oily pancake (I swear it's more appetizing than I just made it sound... food blogger fail right there), it will soften easily.

Bánh Xèo: Sizzling Rice Pancake with Pork and Shrimp

• Author: by Mary
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 4 1x

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• Pancake Batter
• 1 ½ cups rice flour
• ½ cup corn flour
• 2 cups water
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp salt
• Marinade
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp minced spring onion
• 2 Tbsp minced shallot
• Plenty of vegetable oil
• 12 large uncooked shrimp, tail off
• ¾ lb pork belly meat, sliced as thin as you possibly can in 2x1" (ish) pieces
• Extras
• 3 cups bean sprouts, washed and blanched
• 3 cups fragrant greens mix (mint, basils, coriander, and other fragrant greens)
• 12 sheets of thin rice paper (about 4x4" size)
• Sauce
• 1 tsp red chili oil
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 tsp sugar
• 3 tsp lime juice
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp minced red chili
• 2 tsp fish sauce

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Instructions

1. First, make the batter by combining the rice flour, corn starch, turmeric, salt, egg, and water. Whisk together, and set aside. {Ideally this will be made 6+ hours before cooking, but don't stress if you can't do that!}
2. Combine the pork and shrimp, and toss with the garlic, spring onion, and shallot reserved for the marinade. Add ½ teaspoon vegetable oil to make it all come together.
3. In a small frying pan, add about 2 teaspoon of oil. Have your meats and batter handy. Heat the oil over medium heat until quite hot (stick the end of a dry chopstick in the oil, if it bubbles it's ready!). Add two slices of pork and one shrimp, cooking for about 30 seconds before flipping over. Arrange so they are essentially in two columns — on shrimp and piece of pork on one side, and one piece of pork on the other (we're preparing for folding the pancake, without having any meat on the seam).
4. After a minute of cooking the meats on the second side, whisk the batter and then pour ⅓ to ½ cup (will depend on the size of your skillet) of the batter into the pan, while swirling slowly in order to cover the entire surface of the pan and get under the meats. The pancake will sizzle, and should be very thin.
5. Add a small handful of bean sprouts to ½ of the pancake, then cover with a lid to steam them as the pancake cooks. After two minutes, check the pancake — the edges should be quite crispy. Once the edges are crispy, carefully pry up one side and fold in half over the other side of the pancake. Cook until both sides are golden-brown, then remove (let excess oil drip off a bit) from the pan.
6. Cook all the remaining pancakes.
7. To make the sauce, combine all of the sauce ingredients. Taste and add more ingredients to your liking (more lime for more sourness, more sugar to be sweeter, more fish sauce for flavor, etc.).
8. To serve, cut each pancake in half. Open up the ½ pancake, place it on a rice paper wrapper, stuff with the herb mixture, then roll up together. Dip in the sauce, and enjoy!

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