Bánh Khọt - Bite Size Savory Pancakes

Difficulty: Medium (Time Consuming)

Normally, when I go visit my mom, there is never anything to eat!  On my last trip to to see her, she actually showed me how to make banh khot.  I didn't like her version because she loves to alter recipes to make it more healthy (bland and tasteless.)  In the recipe below, I added glutinious rice to give the cake an extra texture.  After reading a million recipes in Vietnamese (who uses the metric system) I came up with 6 Tbsp because it was 1/5 of a standard 1 lb bag of rice flour.

Batter:
1 lb rice flour (454 gr)
6 Tbsp glutinous rice flour (90 gr)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 can 13.5 oz coconut milk (400 ml)
2 stalks green onions, chopped
1.75 cups water (414 ml)

Topping:
35 shrimp, peeled, de-veined
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp sugar
Black pepper
2 ounces pork belly, minced
Fish sauce

Nuoc Cham


Add the rice flour, glutinous rice flour, turmuric, coconut milk together in a large container or bowl.  Mix well and add the water.  Stir the batter to combine and allow for the batter to rest.  Add the chopped onions when you are about to start cooking.

Heat up a pan and add the minced pork belly and garlic.  Sprinkle on the sugar to help caramelized the pork belly.  Stir until almost cooked and add the shrimp.  Add the black pepper and a small splash of fish sauce. Cook until the shrimp is on the verge of turning pink and take off heat.

Heat up your aebelskiver pan on a medium-low heat.  Grease up each cup with a little oil.  Fill each cup about 1/3 way and turn the pan so the batter will coat the sides.  Drop the pork belly and shrimp in, and cover the pan.  It only take a minute or so to cook, depending on how hot your pan gets.  Poke the middle with a wooden skewer or toothpick to check for doneness.

Serve with lettuce, perilla leaves, cucumber round slices, lemon basil, and mint leaves.

Just added the filling