My mom taught me a lot of things about cooking traditional Vietnamese food. She’s a stickler for old school flavors but is open to new world methods. For example, she measures with certain spoons in her kitchen, but loves the digital scale that I bought her. “It’s one of my favorite gifts from you,” she’s told me several times. Mom is a hard woman to shop for and please so I try to be practical.
Last week Michelle asked about making these. I usually don't have time to fulfill recipe requests but these are one of my favorite dumplings that my mom taught me how to make. If you’re not Vietnamese, you may not know about banh gio (“baan zaw” or “baan yaw”). When I was growing up, she prepared dozens of them for us to eat for breakfast or an afternoon snack. Commonly found at Vietnamese delis and sandwich shops, these northern Viet dumplings are best when made at home and eaten fresh from the steamer, when they are soft and redolent of the tealeaflike fragrance of the banana leaf wrapper. Inside, the firmish-soft rice dough encases a savory pork, shallot, and wood ear mushroom. They’re fun and delicious to eat. A Viet dumpling comfort food.
We haven’t had these for a while because they’re a little high-carb but I thought of them this week, thinking back on cool things I learned from my mom. She gave me a banh gio wrapping lesson years ago so that I may master them myself. This 2009 video below showcase her nifty Viet-American technique that involves banana leaf (traditional) with aluminum foil (New World). It’s totally simple to master, even for novices.
Traditionally, banh gio are wrapped in multiple layers of banana leaf in order to produce the signature pyramid shape but you can use fewer banana leaves and foil to make the work less burdensome. In case the video isn’t enough, here’s a process grid of how to wrap banh gio:
Partially cooking the dumpling dough beforehand makes shaping banh gio dumpling easier too. In America, many Vietnamese cooks blend cornstarch with rice flour to firm up the dough a bit and make it easier to manipulate. The modern use of canned chicken broth makes the dough flavorful.
What’s with the name of banh gio? Banh is the generic Viet term for foods made with flours, legumes and starches; banh mi means bread made from wheat flour (mi) as well as the sandwich. Banh gio were named after the fact that the dumplings were traditionally made by professional gio makers who prepared Vietnamese charcuterie, particularly the everyday mortadellalike pork sausage called gio (it’s often featured in traditional banh mi). Leftover scraps of pork would be employed for these dumplings, which people anticipated eating fresh daily from the gio makers.
Like many dumplings, banh gio resulted from resourceful cooks looking to take a simple handful of ingredients to create a marvelous morsel. This is a classic dumpling in the Vietnamese repertoire.
I don't know how Michelle's mom may have made hers but my mom gifted me with this recipe. Now it's yours to use!
Recipe
Vietnamese Rice and Pork Pyramid Dumplings
Banh Gio
Yields: 8 dumplings
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- ⅓ cup (90 ml) finely chopped shallot
- 8 ounces (225 g) ground pork, fatty kind preferred, coarsely chopped to loosen
- 2 large dried wood ear mushrooms, reconstituted, trimmed, and finely chopped (¼ cup | 60 ml total)
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- ¼ plus ⅛ teaspoon sugar
- Generous ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 teaspoons water
- 8 ounces (225 g) regular rice flour, any Thai brand, such as Erawan
- 2 ¼ ounces (75 g) cornstarch
- 4 ½ cups (1.12 l) light-salted chicken stock or low-sodium canned broth
- 8 squares thawed or fresh banana leaf, each 9 inches (22.5 cm) wide, trimmed of any brown edges, washed, and wiped
- 8 pieces of aluminum foil, each 9- by 10 inches (22.5 by 25 cm)
Method
- To make the filling, heat 1 ½ tablespoons canola oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallot and cook, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes, until the edges have started to brown. Add the pork, stirring and poking it to break it into small pieces. When most of the pork has turned color, about 1 minute, add the mushroom. Give things a big stir, then sprinkle in the ¼ teaspoon salt, sugar, pepper, and fish sauce. Cook, for about 2 minutes, until the pork is just cooked through.
- Give the cornstarch a stir, add it to the mixture, and cook for about 30 seconds to lightly bind. Remove from the heat, taste, and add any flavor adjustments for a filling that’s well seasoned flavor. Shoot for a savory flavor that’s slightly more intense than what you’re used to as the dough is lightly seasoned. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool to room temperature. Makes about 1 ¼ cups (300 ml). The filling can be made a day in advance and returned to room temperature before using.
- For the dough, put the rice flour, cornstarch, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center and whisk in the chicken broth, water, and remaining 1 ½ tablespoons oil to form a smooth batter. Strain through a mesh strainer into a pot or large saucepan. Set aside for 10 minutes to bloom.
- Pour the batter through the strainer. Set the pot over high heat. Continuously stir with a wooden spoon at a moderate speed for about 8 minutes, or until a partially cooked, very thick dough forms. Midway through, the mixture will have thickened slightly and resemble white sauce. When you see lumps forming around the spoon, lower the heat slightly and keep stirring. The lumps will eventually disappear. When the dough resembles stiff mashed potatoes, turn off the heat and stir for another 30 seconds to ensure that the dough is smooth. When done, the spoon should be able to stand upright in dough. Remove from the heat and set aside, uncovered, to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Use the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula to smooth out the dough in the pot, and then divide it into 8 even wedges, like a pie. This will help you eyeball the amount of dough for each dumpling.
- To form each dumpling, set a piece of foil down on your work surface with one of the long sides closest to you. Center a piece of banana leaf, smoother side up, atop the foil. Brush a 3 ½-inch (8.75 cm) circle of oil in the center of the banana leaf. Then use an ice cream scoop or ¼-cup (60 ml) measuring cup to center half of a portion of dough atop the banana leaf. Dip two fingers in water and press then gently the dough into a ½-inch (1.25 cm) disk.
- Put 2 ½ tablespoons of filling in the center of the dough; try to keep the filling in a mound. Top with the remaining half portion of dough. It will look messy but don’t worry. Moistened a few fingers and gently press down to spread the dough out a bit and smooth things out. It should now look like a strange sandwich. Bring the edge of banana leaf that’s closest to you to the center, and then bring the edge at the top down to enclose the dumpling. The edges should overlap by ¼ to ½ inch (6mm to 1.25 cm). Pull them in tighter to ensure good coverage.
- Use your two hands to gently press down on the right and left edges to begin forming the pyramid shape. Bring the top and bottom edges of foil to the center and let them overlap, just like the banana leaf. Use your hands again to firmly press down on the sides to secure the square-shaped base. Finally, fold the open ends down and under the dumpling. Use scissors to trim any excessive foil poking out. Place the dumpling in a steamer tray (there’s no need to line the tray). Repeat with the remaining dumplings.
- Steam the dumplings over boiling water for 40 to 45 minutes, or until dumplings have puffed up slightly a skewer inserted comes out more or less clean; some dough sticking to the skewer is okay. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before eating. Open up the foil and banana leaf and dive in with chopsticks or fork. The banana leaf is inedible.
- Refrigerate leftovers, return to room temperature, and resteam for 10 to 15 minutes until hot.
Duyen Nguyen
I made these for the first time and succeeded! Thank you for your detailed instruction and the video!
Andrea Nguyen
Hooray! I love banh gio and was just thinking of my mom's recipe the other day. Thank you.
Trang Pham
Hi. Love your recipes. I was wondering if I can freeze them? And if I can, would I freeze them when the dough is still raw/ before steaming or after? Thank you!
Andrea Nguyen
My mom steams them and then freezes them. She's an intrepid freezer fan.
Sue R
I love this idea of using foil on the outside. I've tried making a Chinese version of this with rice on the outside and it was so hard to get right so I'll remember this technique next time I try. Thanks to you mum. She's pretty amazing.