Vietnamese Steamed Egg Meatloaf - I Was Actually Trying to Use All the Eggs in the Fridge

My mom uses many eggs in her cooking, quite often too. Somehow the eggs in my household always get neglected. I would have a box of eggs and used like one or two, the most four. Then the rest will be left in the fridge for weeks. Good thing that eggs can stay fresh for a while when stored correctly.

So the Vietnamese steamed egg meatloaf was like a recipe come to a rescue. To bring my long forgotten eggs out to the world again. This time, this well-known Vietnamese side dish released a total of eight eggs from the icy dreaded fridge.

Vietnamese steamed egg meatloaf - 

Ingredients?

• 8 eggs
• 450 grams gorund pork 
• 1 big piece fresh wood ear (can be substitute with dried wood ear)
• 1/2 medium carrot
• 50 grams glass noodles
• 2 medium shallots or 1/4 small red onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 4 tablespoons corn starch 
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• Some salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

How?

If using dried wood ear, rehydrate it in warm water till plump again. Try to aim for one big piece in the end. Trim-off tougher area then mince the remaining part.

Soak the glass noodles in room temperature water till hydrate and soft. Soaking time varies depending on the type of glass noodles used. Once done, drain and chop to smaller bits, about 2 to 3 mm in length. 

Peel and finely chop the shallots or red onion. Peel and finely chop the garlic cloves.

Separate 3 eggs. Store the yolks in the fridge first and pour the egg whites to a big mixing bowl.

In that big mixing bowl, also break in 5 whole eggs, wood ear, glass noodles, shallot or onion, garlic, ground pork. For the seasonings, add in 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 4 tablespoons of corn starch. 

If you prefer firmer texture for the egg meatloaf, use 5 tablespoons of corn starch instead. Mix till all these ingredients are evenly blended.

Have a meatloaf pan lined up with parchment paper. I actually used glass food storage container instead.

Pour in the egg and pork mixture and even it out.

Cover with cling foil. Pour some water to the steamer and steam for 30 minutes. Once ready, carefully taking out the container and don't let any water drips into the steamed loaf. Remove the cling foil.

Remember the 3 yolks we saved earlier? Beat that with one small pinch of salt then pour right over the steamed loaf. You will have to tilt the container in different directions in order to get the yolk cover the whole surface.

Cover with new cling foil. Add a bit more water to the steamer and transfer the container over again. This time steam till the yolk topping is set, about 10 minutes. 

I prefer to steam the egg meatloaf longer just to be sure that the very center has been cooked through. A few more minutes won't really alter the taste nor the texture of the loaf.

Once ready, remove the container and the foil while making sure no water drips in. Pull out the parchment paper while transferring the egg meatloaf to serving plate. 

Per my case, the parchment paper was torn apart. So I actually ran the knife along the edges then inverted the egg meatloaf to a big plate. Then I cover the loaf with serving plate and inverted back again, so that the yolk side stays on top.

Slice to thick rectangular pieces and serve as a side dish. Usually you'll find egg meatloaf together with broken rice, but it'll still serve well with just any other type of steamed rice. 

If you don't have a steamer, oven works too. Use 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 degrees Celsius and bake for 40 minutes first. The second time after pouring the yolk on top, simply bake for 10 minutes should do the trick. 

 

For my version of egg meatloaf, the main body is paler than the ones you often see at a Vietnamese restaurant. I think the reason is that I also added extra egg whites in the ground pork mixture, thus dilute the yolk color.

On top of that, some people would add annatto oil to the yolk on top. I tried to keep the food I cook at home as natural as possible, so I purposefully steered away from any potential food coloring added ingredient. 

I think many of you would agree with what I do here? I'd rather use up all the eggs instead of having egg whites leftover. Also I think it's better to have paler outcome instead of any potential artificial food coloring involved.