Bun Cha

Yesterday, the co-op had packages of ground pork for a dollar off.  This was great, because I’d been meaning to make bun cha lately.  Today, along with the newly acquired meat, I could make a simple version of this dish with very little fuss: soft rice noodles, torn lettuce and herbs, fried meatballs, and a pungently sweet dressing.  Aside from mixing up the pork with a marinade earlier this morning, itself a quick task, lunch came together in about fifteen minutes.  But I could have made it in ten if I had hurried a bit.  The trick for a recipe like this is to multi-task.  I aim to boil a kettle for the noodles while I tear lettuce and herbs, make the dressing while my pan heats, and rinse the cooked noodles with cold water while the meat fries.  Then everything is ready to assemble at about the same time.

I came up with my version by heavily adapting this one from Saveur.  As written, I find that it takes twice as long and uses twice as many dishes as it really needs to.  I also ended up with twice as much rather watery nuoc cham.  My revisions reduce the number of dishes to be done after lunch and concentrate the sauce to be quite salty with fish sauce and only moderately sweet.  If it’s a bit strong for your taste, add sugar, acid, or water spoonfuls at a time until a piece of torn lettuce dipped into it tastes delicious to you. (Coincidentally, David Lebovitz also posted a Vietnamese bun recipe today.  His recipe looks lovely and crunchy with its chopped up egg rolls and fried shallots.  It’s full of vegetables and garnished with roasted peanuts, yet flexible in terms of protein.)

There’s lots of room for variety in this recipe.  Like thin rice vermicelli rather than the thicker kind?  Go for it, they’ll taste wonderful.  Have a stray cucumber or a couple of sweet carrots lying around?  Mandoline or julienne them. I tossed in some nasturtium blossoms from the garden, and they were bright here.  Prefer lemon juice (as I do) to lime?  Out of rice vinegar? As long as there’s acid in the nuoc cham, it will taste good.  

Bun Cha

[Serves four, or two who want seconds]

For the meatballs:

About 1 lb of ground pork

2 T demerara, palm, or dark brown sugar

3 T fish sauce

1 shallot (or very small, sweet onion) finely minced

¼ t or so ground black pepper

Mix up all of the above.  Refrigerate for an hour or two at least.

Heat a heavy skillet on the stovetop.  I like to use an eight inch cast iron and bring it up gradually over medium heat to near the smoking point.  

As your pan gets very hot, form the pork mixture into slightly flattened balls about two inches in diameter.

Fry them about three minutes on each side, pressing them lightly with a spatula to make the most contact between meat and and the skillet’s surface.  You want them to be a little bit charred on the outside.

For the nuoc cham

½ cup water

2 T fish sauce

1 T lime juice

1 T rice vinegar

1 tsp demerara, palm, or dark brown sugar

1 birdseye or other hot chili minced (or a heavy pinch of dried crushed red pepper)

Mix all of the above until the sugar fully dissolves.

For the bun cha

½ lb dried rice noodles (I used thicker rice sticks this time, but I also love thin vermicelli here)

torn lettuce leaves

torn herbs (mint, shiso, basil, and/or cilantro are especially nice.  So are brightly colored flowers like nasturtiums or borage.)

Soak the rice noodles in boiling water until they’re soft.  Drain and rinse with cold water, then drain very well by bouncing your colander up and down (like I do) or dumping them out onto a clean kitchen towel.  Divide among bowls.

Top with vegetables and a couple of pork meatballs.  Spoon nuoc cham over all and serve with extra dressing on the side.