Instant Pot Cha Trung Hap
In our house, my kids refer to this dish as ‘meat pie’, which probably sounds pretty strange to anyone outside our family. In actuality, this is probably a very familiar dish to many people as it’s commonly served at Com Tam (broken rice) restaurants, which are popular in the Bay Area. It was also a household staple for me growing up and my mom continues to make it frequently for us to take home after a visit because it packs up so conveniently and my kids LOVE it.
As with everything my mom cooks, she doesn’t have anything written down and when I call her for help (usually putting her on the spot as I already have the stove on), I don’t ever end up with things the way they should be (wrong proportions, missing steps – always). However, my mom really came through with this one. She gave me very accurate measurements and then she and my dad both texted me pictures and videos that helped me piece things together. I ended up making this twice, but only because I tried to take some shortcuts the first time around (note to self: chopped carrots are not the same as shredded carrots). When I followed the recipe exactly the second time, it tasted exactly as my mom makes it.
The one thing I did change from the directions my mom gave me was to use my Instant Pot rather than a stove top steamer. I had to play around with the cooking time but once I got it right, I found I was able to cut the time by half, which now makes this much more feasible to cook. The recipe below incorporates this technique but steaming on the stove top is just as easy (just expect a steam time of one hour and 15 minutes vs. 20 minutes in step 6).
All of the ingredients + protein & fish sauce 
Separate 3 egg yolks for top coating 
Cook directly in a glass container for easy storage 
Step 5: ‘cut’ down the center for a flat surface after steaming 
Step 7: leave cover ajar after brushing on top egg coating
This dish can also be fried in a pan like a frittata. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, it’s actually way quicker to cook it this way. You can use the same ingredient proportions below and just reduce the number of eggs. When frying, I usually halve the recipe for a single sitting and use 2-3 eggs. Make sure to flip and cook on both sides. Altogether, it should take about 15-20 minutes to cook.
Instant Pot Cha Trung Hap
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1/3 lb peeled and deveined shrimp, chopped or ground in food processor
- 1/2 cup dried sliced cloud ear mushrooms
- 1 section bean thread noodle
- 4 bulbs green onion
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 1 small carrot, shredded
- 3 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp veggie seasoning
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
- 10 eggs
Instructions
- Soak bean thread noodles and dried cloud ear mushrooms in water, separately.
- Separate 3 egg yolks. Then combine egg whites with remaining 7 eggs in another bowl.
- Shred carrots, chop green and yellow onions. Then chop bean thread noodles and dried mushrooms into roughly 1/2 inch length.
- Mix together all ingredients except 3 egg yolks. Pour into glass storage containers. Note: we do this for easy storage, but any glass or metal pan that can fit into a steamer or Instant Pot works.
- Take a knife and cut down the center of the raw meat mixture both vertically and horizontally (basically dividing the dish into quadrants). This step is necessary to prevent a mound to develop during steaming.
- Pour 2 cups of water into Instant Pot. Then place glass container onto trivet inside the Instant Pot. Lock lid, making sure steam release handle is set to sealing. Press 'Steam' setting and adjust time for 10 minutes. Allow natural release. The warmup, steaming, and release time should be about 20 minutes in total.
- Once pressure has been released, brush egg yolk on top. Replace lid but leaving ajar. Set to saute for 7 minutes.