Vietnamese Meatball Pho Recipes

BEEF MEATBALLS (VIETNAMESE)

Steps:

• Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a food processor and blend until everything is mixed and minced. Transfer to a bowl.
• Put a little oil in your hands, just enough to lightly coat fingers and palms and use a tablespoon to scoop up the beef mixture so the meatballs are the same size. Repeat process until all the beef mixture is used.
• In a deep pan over medium high heat, add oil and the meatballs. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn the meatballs over, cover and cook for another 5 or until meatballs are golden brown.
• Mix all the ingredients for the dipping sauce in a bowl and serve together with beef meatballs. Pour over or use as a dipping sauce.
• Serve with rice, tomatoes and a few cilantro leaves.

BEEF MEATBALLS (VIETNAMESE)

Steps:

• Combine ground beef, onion, cilantro, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, honey, and chile pepper in a food processor and blend until mixed and minced. Transfer to a bowl. Coat fingers and palms lightly with oil and scoop tablespoons of beef mixture to create equal-sized meatballs and place them on a plate.
• Heat oil in a deep pan over medium heat. Add meatballs; cover and cook 5 minutes. Turn meatballs over, cover pan, and cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes more.
• Combine hoisin sauce, soy sauce, water, fish sauce, and chile pepper in a bowl and serve with meatballs. Pour over meatballs or use as a dipping sauce.

SIMPLE TURKEY MEATBALL PHO

Steps:

• Place a heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium low heat. Add all of the spices and stir them until fragrant, about 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully add the stock or broth; it will sputter quite a bit. Turn the heat to high and add the remaining broth ingredients. When it reaches a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered for 20-30 minutes. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into another saucepot or soup pot. Keep it at a simmer while you assemble your bowls and garnishes.

RECIPE FOR VIETNAMESE BEEF MEATBALLS WITH TENDON (BO VIEN GAN)

Steps:

• It's best to ask the butcher to grind the beef for you, if not, you can grind them yourself. To grind the beef, start by cutting them into 1-inch cubes.
• Wrap all those cubes in a large plastic bag and chill in the freezer for 1 hour.
• Remove the half-frozen beef from the freezer and grind them in the food processor, starting in small batches, one-by-one and work them through (I divided into 4 batches for grinding in my 16 cups food processor).
• Use 4 quart-size freezer bags to store ground beef. Flattening the bags down so that ground beef will be chilled evenly. Chill the beefy bags in the freezer for an hour.
• For each batch of half-frozen ground beef (1 freezer bag), divide and use 1/4 part of seasoning as the following.
• First, take out 1 bag of half-frozen beef and add to food processor.
• Now add 1/4 portion of the fish sauce, sugar, and ground pepper into the food processor and pulse/grind for about 20 -30 seconds.
• Beef mixture should turn to a lighter pink and smooth to semi-paste-like texture with a few of darker spot. Transfer back to the freezer bag and chill for an hour.
• Repeat with other remaining beef batches.
• Take out 1 half-frozen beef-mixture bag and add to the food processor.
• Also add ¼ of the baking powder, potato starch, vegetable oil, and crushed ice; then process on medium to high for 20-30 seconds.
• Beef should be in paste-like texture, super smooth, and light pink color.
• From here on, you can either mix with tendon or skip that step and go straight to the shaping and boiling steps.
• If you choose not to use tendon, just skip this part of the procedure and go straight to shaping & boiling meatballs.
• Start by washing tendon, patting dry before soaking with 2 Tbsp of wine (I used vodka) for 5-10 minutes. This will help removing any strange odor.
• Pressure cooker: boil enough water, then add tendon and 1 Tbsp of salt, pressure cooked for 20 minutes so that tendon is almost done, but not fully tender. Vent manually.
• Regular pot: boil tendon with 1 Tbsp of salt, but cook longer, 40-60 minutes
• Prepare an icy cold water bath with 1 Tbsp lemon/lime juice, upon remove tendon, dip and soak them immediately in the cold water bath.
• When the tendon is fully cool, cut it down to shorter length and throw into your food processor, pulse a few times to chop into smaller chunks, but not paste.
• Grate ginger and finely mince garlic (if using) and mix together with the tendon bits.
• Wrap tendon bits and store in the fridge until use. Do this while you're waiting for the beef mixture to chill in the freezer to save time.
• Once you finished the second regrind paste step, take out tendon bits, divide and mix together the beef mixture. Use a stand mixer with a flat beater to achieve this. Don't prolong mixing time more than 30 sec, add crushed ice to cool the mixture down if you're in a hot climate.
• You want as low to no air bubbles as possible in every meatball. To achieve this, you could either use a pastry bag and large coupler (no nozzle), use a thick plastic bag and cut off one corner to an inch diameter, or simply pull and pluck with your hand (already coated in veggie oil). Just choose whichever works best for you.
• Now let set up the working area. You will need a "before" icy water bath (to pre-chill meatballs), a large pot of water on the stovetop (to cook the meatballs), and a "finish" icy water bath (to help set the texture and quickly chill meatballs after cooking).
• Depend on your pot/container capacity, you can work on them at once or divide them in bag like when you're grinding earlier.
• Anyhow, Pipe or pluck to form ball-shape and drop each meatball into the icy-cold water bath. Doing this will help them retain their crunch and chewy texture while keeping their color on the brighter side.
• Once you finish forming balls out of one beef batch, transfer the chilled meatball from the water bath into the boiling pot to cook them.
• Meatballs will be floating up and inflating a bit when they are done cooking. So once done, transfer them out to the "finish" chilling bath.
• When meatballs are fully cool down, transfer out to a mesh/drip baskets.
• Now you can enjoy them immediately as an appetizer, use in other recipes like Pho, Pad Thai, stir-fried noodles, etc. Pat dry and store the remaining in freezer bags/containers for future use.

VIETNAMESE MEATBALL PHO

Steps:

• Heat oven to 350°F.
• Heat oil in Dutch oven or small stockpot on medium-high heat. Add steak slices; cook 4 min. or until done, stirring frequently. Add 1 gal. water, bouillon, soy sauce, ginger, onion powder, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves and anise; mix well. Bring to boil; simmer on medium-low heat 30 min., stirring occasionally.
• Meanwhile, mix ground beef, stuffing mix, crushed red pepper, garlic powder, and remaining water just until blended. Roll into 40 meatballs, using about 2 tsp. meat mixture for each meatball. Place on parchment-covered rimmed baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 min. or until done.
• Remove and discard anise pod from ingredients in Dutch oven. Add meatballs; stir. Return to simmer, stirring occasionally. Serve over noodles.