Vietnamese Shrimp Cakes (banh khot)

This is one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes that a lot of non-Vietnamese eaters have never been exposed to. There's a special cast iron pan that you use for this (see picture below), and luckily my apartment mate Trang has one! She played around with the batter recipe, and here's the best one we got. I loved tasting the coconut milk in the shrimp cake, and the outer crust is slightly crunchy.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. shrimp

1 lb. rice flour

1 cup corn starch

3 cups cold water

1 cup coconut milk

1 tsp salt

5 tsp turmeric

1 cup green onions, chopped

Method:

1. Peel and devein shrimps. Cut into small pieces (3-4 pieces per shrimp) and sauté with a touch of oil and minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set shrimp aside.

2. Mix remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl to make batter for shrimp cake.

3. Heat up pan on medium to medium-high heat. Vietnamese shrimp cakes are made in a specialty pan very similar in shape to an Ebelskiver pan.

4. In each depression, add a tiny bit of oil, pour in batter to fill the depression about ¾ way, and immediately add a piece of shrimp. Cover and cook until batter is no longer translucent (about 2-3 minutes).

5. Uncover and cook until cakes no longer stick to pan and bottoms are crispy.

6. Plate and serve with fish sauce vinaigrette (recipe can be found in previous Vietnamese dinner meet post), and fresh lettuce and mint.