Lẩu Dê Nấu Chao Recipe – Vietnamese Goat Hot Pot

Lẩu dê nấu chao is our Vietnamese/Chinese herbal goat hot pot, marinated in fermented bean curd. This special delicacy is not a quick and easy dish to make. Goat itself is especially hard cook and prepare. Not to scare you away before you attempt to make this complicated dish.

3 Steps To Get Rid of Goat Smell

The goat smell is why most Vietnamese don\’t particularly eat goat. Here are a few steps to get rid of the goat smell.

Step #1: Pick a good goat meat. If you can source your goat meat from a trusted local butcher, then they should know how to handle and pick the right goat for eating. I find that fresh goat meat has a strong smell as compared to already frozen goat meat. So if you want fresh goat meat, make sure your local butcher knows his meat. Some mid easter market even have fresh goat meat that have been torched to rid the hair and smell.

Step #2: Even if you have a good piece of goat meat, you will need to use certain technique to overwhelm the goat stench. Wash your meat in hot boiling water with spices and wine. In a pot of water, bring to boil and add in salt, ginger root, galangal skin (the root will be grated for marinate), bay leaf, or any other spices that have a strong fragrance, and chinese cooking wine. Add in your goat and boil/blanch for 10 min. Take out and wash under cold water.

Another technique is to wash your goat in chinese cooking wine and salt for 15 min, and then searing the meat over charcoal. But this technique is more time consuming.

Step #3: Marinate your meat with grated galangal root, lemongrass, 5 spice powder etc. Any spice with strong overwhelming smell to cover up the goat smell.

What Vietnamese Dish Use Goat

The Vietnamese cuisine is ever changing and adapting. There are new and improve dishes every day! But goat is a rare meat that Vietnamese people don\’t often eat as much. For one, it is expensive, and two the hard labor that goes into preparing the dish.

Vietnamese open supermarkets don\’t often have fridges and/or freezers to keep their meat fresh. Meats that are sold are processed within the same day. The restaurants in Vietnam that serves up goats, are specialized restaurants. They have connection straight from the farm. The goat farmers mainly sell to these specialized restaurants because they know the number of goats they need to provide to process each day.

In these specialized restaurants that serves up goat, I usually see these:
-Lẩu dê nấu chao: Goat bean curd hot pot.
-Dê hấp sả: Steam goat with lemongrass.
-Dê hấp tía tô: Stem goat with shiso.
-Dê xào lăn: Stir fry goat in lemongrass curry.
-Dê nướng sả ớt: Grill goat with lemongrass chili pepper.
-Vú dê nướng: Grilled goat breasts.
-Tiết canh dê: Goat coagulated blood.
etc….

How to Make Lẩu dê

While it is pretty hard to make this dish at home, it is a lot easier for us to make Lẩu dê at home now because of modernized supermarket convenience. The butcher cuts up your goat for you. You can even buy pre cut taro root. Pre peeled garlic (even minced). Pre made pork broth, chicken broth, vegetable broth… etc. There are lots of convenience nowadays to put together a complicated dish as Lẩu dê nấu chao.

These ingredients are all made from scratch. Feel free to sub and convenience step to ease your cooking. Such as making the pork broth can sub for using pre made cans or concentrate. Or even pre seasoned Lẩu dê seasoning? It\’s up to you. However, I do want you to follow the exact recipe here just so you know how ChefQ\’s Recipe live up to my own name. Let me know how it goes for you in the comments below or follow me on my social media platforms below!

Happy Cooking!
ChefQ

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-SRVJqbprU&w=560&h=315]