Bún chả

Ingredients

• Pork belly — thinly sliced400 g
• Minced pork400 g
• Rice vermicelli400 g
• Fish sauce100 ml
• Sugar4 tbsp
• Limes3
• Garlic8 clove
• Shallots4
• Green papaya or daikon200 g
• Carrot1
• Chillies2
• Mint, perilla, coriander100 g
• Lettuce200 g
• Black pepper1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Marinate the belly slices and the mince separately in fish sauce, sugar, shallot, garlic and pepper for an hour.

   25 min

2. 2

   Shape the mince into flat patties a centimetre thick; they cook fast and evenly.

   12 min

3. 3

   Slice the papaya and carrot thin and pickle them in vinegar with sugar for twenty minutes.

   22 min

4. 4

   Mix the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, water, garlic and chilli and warm it through; that is the nước chấm.

   10 min

5. 5

   Boil the vermicelli two minutes, rinse it in cold water and divide it between plates.

   8 min

6. 6

   Grill the belly and the patties over coals, three minutes a side, to caramelised edges.

   12 min

7. 7

   Drop the hot meat straight into the warm sauce with the pickles and serve with the noodles, lettuce and herbs.

   6 min

About the dish

The pork comes two ways: thin slices of belly and flat patties of minced meat. They grill together, and the difference in texture is part of the design.

The nước chấm sauce is served warm in a separate bowl, with pickled slices of green papaya and carrot floating in it. The noodles and meat are dipped rather than drowned.

Bún chả is a Hanoi dish and a lunchtime one: in northern Vietnam it is eaten between eleven and two, and in the evening many places are simply shut.

Worth knowing

• — The meat goes into the sauce hot. Its fat disperses through the broth and makes the sauce what the dish exists for.
• — The patties are flat, not round. Thick ones will not reach a caramelised crust in the time the slices take.
• — The herbs come piled and uncut. Each person takes them by hand into their own bowl — that is part of the serving, not decoration.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

66 g

More from Vietnam

• Phở bò — A clear beef broth with charred ginger and whole spices, rice noodles, and beef that finishes cooking in the bowl.
• Bánh mì — A French baguette with Vietnamese filling: pâté, pork, pickled vegetables and coriander in one sandwich.
• Gỏi cuốn — Fresh rice paper rolls with prawn, pork, noodles and herbs, never fried.