Cha que recipe

From The Ravenous Couple

My parents visited recently over the holidays (This post took a lot longer then we expected, but never late then never! ) and did some baking.  But to mom, baking is much more savory endeavor. She doesn’t have a sweet tooth and I don’t think she ever baked a cake or cookie before. Not even for our birthdays.  We didn’t have a glass of milk and cookies for after school snacks like our American counterparts, in fact our typical after school snack would be a warm banh day with a slab of freshly baked chả quế, a baked cinnamon laced porkv chả. I would come home to a house smelling of freshly baked pork and cinnamon. Totally weird sounding, right?  But I didn’t care back then, because the chả quế she made was absolutely delicious to come home to and I don’t think I missed out on chocolate chip cookies.

Cha que Vietnamese cinnamon pork pate

The process for making chả quế is almost identical to chả lua. It starts with slurry of water, potato starch, and baking powder, add to that finely ground pork. Mix, chill, and grind some more with plenty of cinnamon and bake. Whereas chả lua is wrapped and steamed, chả quế is baked which results in a golden brown, crinkly, chewy crust.

Slice it up and stuff in baguettes for banh mi, sandwiched in banh day, with sticky rice, or snack on it alone.  The combination of pork and cinnamon is a special treat. When making something specialized like chả, we always make plenty of it because it’s easy to freeze but also very easy to give away to friends and family so don’t be daunted by the large portion size.  But feel free to divide the recipe in half. The ratio of ingredients is important but unlike baking a cake, not as crucial. Also, you can adjust the level of saltiness as well strength of cinnamon to your taste. Also, use a good quality cinnamon. If it’s been sitting in your pantry for years, it’s most likely have lost much of it’s aroma and flavor.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE!!!!!