Steamed Beef & Pork Pate (Chả Đùm)

Howdy, everybody? It feels great to be able to come here once in a while to post my dish.  Today's dish is Chả Đùm means "steamed pate"—ocassionally, you would see this dish presents together as a package of a meal with six other courses that are made out of beef as well, it calls the 7-courses of beef. If you are to delve more in depth about the 7-courses of beef, you will find some of the 7-courses of beef are not 100% made out of beef.  Some ground pork with little of facts is required in order to yield the moist and flavor in the dish. Same thing goes with the dish, Steamed Pate that I will be sharing with you shortly, it has to have some ground pork. When I have time I would talk more in detail about the 7-courses of beef, what are the courses they consisted of, and last but not least is how to eat them.  For today, we will make this dish as an appetizer to which you can serve them with fried shrimp chips, or you can eat them with steamed rice like I did. Authentically when steaming this dish, the entire meatloaf (steamed pate) supposes to wrap around with a thin layer of caul fat, in Vietnamese, it calls Mỡ chài.  Unfortunately, now a day we can not find this type of ingredient at any Asian supermarket -- you can order them online, though -- with the caul fat, the steamed pate would have more flavor and moisture, especially the outer surface of the steamed pate. Although this recipe does not have the caul fat, the finished look and taste of this dish is delicious and mouth-watering. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

-1 cup of ground pork (marble type, the one with a little fat)

-1 cup of ground beef

-2/3 cup of a blanched beef liver (Wash beef liver thoroughly with salt and wine, cut them into thin slices, approximately 1/4 inch thick. Bring a small pot of cold water to a boiling point, add a little salt and ground pepper, add the slices of beef liver in. Blanch it quickly, give a quick stir with chopsticks. Drain them all out in a colander, wash and rinse with cold water, let them drain well in a colander until needed it.

-2/3 cup of clear noodles that have already been hydrated in water and well-drained--these clear noodles are made out mung bean, they come in a dried form, can able to find them in any Asian supermarket)

-3 chicken eggs

-1/4 of one medium bulb of yellow onion, peeled

-4 cloves of garlic, peeled

-2/3 of a medium bulb of red shallot, peeled

-1/3 cup of roasted and crushed peanuts

-2 stocks of scallion, washed and thinly cut

-a good and strong food processor

Seasonings:

-1 + 1/2 teaspoons of regular salt

-1 teaspoon of fish sauce (I used the Three Blue Crab Brand)

-1 teaspoon of white sugar

-1 tiny pinch of ground black peppers

Instructions:

-In a clean & dried food processor, you will grind the followings ingredients: onion, garlic, shallot, and roasted peanuts, see the pictures below. Scoop these mixtures out after they roughly ground into a small bowl. 

-Next, in that empty food processor, add the blanched beef livers in, give it a few pause to roughly grind the blanched beef livers into small pieces, first. Then, add ground pork and beef in, continue to grind them together into a paste, make sure they all are incorporated together. Scoop the paste of meat and liver out into a big clean bowl, here, you will add the clear noodles, eggs, scallion, and all the seasonings. Mix well, take a tiny portion, about a teaspoon, cook it in a microwave to taste, adjust the seasonings to your liking. 

-Divide the mixture into the desireable portions in the ceramic or stainless steel containers, smooth the top surface to make sure they all are smooth and well patted, sprinkle some ground black peppers on top, last, cook them in a steamer for about 30 min. However, it might require long of cooking time if the portions you patted are thicker. To make sure, please always use your food thermometer to check. 

-After the steamed pate are fulled cooked, take them out of the steamer, let them rest for about 5 min. before you can flip them out to the plate. 

-Like I have already mentioned, this dish is served with fried shrimp chips as an appetizer or intake them with steamed white rice. 

As shown here in the picture, beef liver, ground pork, ground beef, yellow onion, garlic, roasted peanuts, clear noodles 

wash the beef liver, cut, blanched them 

grinding the onion, garlic, shallot, and  roasted peanuts

 

next, the beef liver

ground pork and beef went in next

and the rest of the ingredients 

chopped green onion for coloring

test tasting time

when everything is ok, divide the mixture into multiple containers, get ready to cook them in the steamer

Tip of the day, to prohibit the steaming hot water which will reside on top the steamer's lid as the result of the steaming, dripping into the pate's containers, use a clean towel or clean paper towels to wrap the lid before topping it on the steamer. 

done

take it out, let them rest for 5 min. so that, the juice will absorb back to the steamed pate

Voila!! :) 

top with some roasted peanut to add a little touch, finish it off. 

eating as an appetizer 

Enjoy, guys.