Nicholas Gavin is the Culinary Creative Director of ChefSteps, where he develops recipes and is responsible for making all the food look beautiful. Nick has worked at ChefSteps for over a decade; he and ChefSteps co-founder Grant Crilly worked together at Modernist Cuisine. Nick has worked in professional kitchens both in the United States and abroad, most notably at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain.

Nicholas Gavin

Xíu mại are steamed or poached pork meatballs, often served with a light tomato sauce, that are as delicious as they are texturally interesting, just like the bánh mì they’re often served with. Typically made from seasoned fatty ground pork, these meatballs usually contain a mixture of cornstarch and grated jicama, which combine to barely bind the meat together, yielding savory, soft, and juicy meatballs with noticeable bits of crunchiness in every bite, thanks to the jicama. As we tested this recipe for our bánh mì filling, we found that we preferred the texture and flavor of xíu mại when we incorporated grated daikon in the mix; its funky, lightly bitter flavor seemed to play well with the other seasonings, and it functions super well as a tenderizer, just like the jicama does. We also did side-by-side trials of plain, steamed xíu mại and xíu mại napped in a tomato sauce, and while the tomato sauced ones are delicious, the plain ones were the clear favorite when combined with <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-liver-pate">pâté</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/do-chua-vietnamese-pickled-daikon-and-carrots">pickles</a>, mayo, and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/banh-mi-bread">the bread</a>.These meatballs strike a textural balance between the cold cuts and the cooked meats that are often added to bánh mì. They’ve got a bit of the bounce (and sodium content) of cured meat, while also delivering on the soft sweetness of more conventionally cooked meat. The meatballs also have a ton of richness from the fat and gelatin bound up in the mixture by the gel created by cooking together the watery daikon and the cornstarch. And the best part of the meatball mixture is it’s super versatile: You can stuff the meatballs whole into the sandwich, slice them in half, crush them with the back of a spoon, or you can even stick the mixture into a loaf pan to get thick or thin slices.

Xíu Mại (Vietnamese Meatballs)