Cha Bo

Cha Bo is also known as Vietnamese Beef Ham. I usually eat it with steam rice cake and fish sauce.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs fresh beef – ground twice – ask your butcher
• 1 teaspoon monosodium glutamate (optional)
• 2 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1/2 package of Alsa-Baking-Powder
• 1/2 tablespoon potato starch
• 2 1/2 tablespoon cold ice water
• A little bit of chop garlic and black pepper (optional)

• Marinate ground beef with all the above ingredients.
• Place the ground beef inside a plastic zipper bag, place flat on a surface and put it inside a freezer for 3 hours.
• Put the ground beef into a food processor and pulse it couple time, if it’s too hard then you can add 1 tablespoon of cold ice water to soften it. The texture should be very smooth and had a pinkish colors.
• Wrap it up in banana leaf or in plastic wrap and tied it with multiple plastic string. Steam for about 30-35 minutes (will vary depending on size). Remember that the beef ham will rise and expand a bit when cooked.