Chả Trứng - Vietnamese Egg Pie

Chả Trứng has many identities such as egg pie, egg cake, egg loaf, Vietnamese quiche.  You can call it whatever you want but we all know what you mean, the yellow square or triangle that come along with Vietnamese pork chop ' Cơm Sườn'.  Honestly sometimes i'm totally content with eating egg pie, hot rice, and sweet fish sauce!

This is a simple recipe with ground pork, dried wood ear mushroom, bean thread, eggs, and green onions.  Since I always end up drowning it with sweet fish sauce I do a simple season of salt, pepper, and sugar. You can either steam this on the stove top or bake this in the oven.  My mom used to make this 

Ingredients: serves 4

8 eggs

1 cup of ground pork

1/2 cup wood ear mushroom

2 oz dried bean thread  ( roughly 1 cup after you rehydrate it)

3 stalks of green onion (minced)

1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 tablespoon of fish sauce 

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1 tablespoon of sugar 

steamer ( or any large pot with a lid)

baking dish (bread pan should be perfect for this recipe)

cooking oil

1.  Rehydrate the wood ear mushroom and dried bean thread by soaking in hot water. Use scissors to cut up the bean thread.  Once they have soften, make sure you squeeze off excess water.

2.  Combine 3 eggs, ground pork, minced green onions, wood ear mushroom, bean thread, salt, fish sauce, sugar, and pepper.  

3.  Separate the yolk from the remaining 5 eggs.  We will not be using the whites so you can use for other things.  

4.  Coat your baking dish with some oil.  

5.  Pour step #2 into your baking dish and make sure the surface is flat and even.

6.  Mix the 5 egg yolks from before and pour on top of the pork mixture.

7.  In a large pot add enough water so that it will come up 1/2 way to your baking dish.  Put on the lid and steam on medium heat.  If you would like to you the oven, you'll need a larger baking dish and same concept you'll need to add enough water so it comes up 1/2 way to your smaller baking dish.  Wrap with foil and bake on 400 degrees until egg pie is cooked all the way through.  The best way to know when your egg pie is fully cooked is using toothpick just like you were testing a cake.  If it comes up clean, you are done!  

8.  I like to steam and it took about 45 minutes to cook completely.  If you are steaming, pour liquid condensation away.  Let egg pie cool down completely before cutting into it.

9.  Enjoy!