Bun cha

I am now obsessed with Vietnamese food, but I am starting to understand that this is the kind of food that might be better eaten in a restaurant rather than made at home. Don't get me wrong, it came out well...it's just that this simple meal took 6 hours to make.

It might be because we ground 10lbs of pork shoulder by hand. It might be because I kept changing the amount of bun cha we were going to make because it didn't seem like enough. Either way, it was still a stupidly time-consuming experiment, and thankfully I froze some of the marinated meat.

Bun cha is ground pork, marinated with garlic, fish sauce, and palm sugar, molded into patties and barbecued. It is served with a pile of fresh herbs – cilantro, mint, asian basil, chives and lettuce – rice noodles and unbelievable spring rolls. This all sounds very simple, but hand-making spring rolls is one lengthy process. Read on for recipes...

We used this recipe for the bun cha, which I think worked really well. We barbecued the meat outside on the coldest day of the winter in New York so far, the wind whipping the flames up a little high at times. We also grilled up some whole pork shoulder, sliced it thinly and served it with the bun cha – we were trying to be as authentic as we could over here, so far away from Hanoi. The pork and bun cha went in a bowl and the dipping sauce over the top. The spring rolls were so good, that even after them taking so long, I am swooning at my chair, thinking about them. Anyway, this was a simple enough recipe, I just had trouble because a lot of my rice papers had holes in them. Served with the bun cha, dipping sauce, rice noodles and huge plate of greens this was a great meal, eaten family-style with huge glasses of beer (when pretending you're in Rome and all that). Saying that we probably should have sat on plastic stools outside. We can wait until it's a little warmer outside. Okay, maybe we will make bun cha again...

Comments

[cakewardrobe]

I have too been obsessing over Vietnamese food the past few days! I just ordered this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580086659/ref=s9_asin_image_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0K3AVD11H2G9Y0QTTAQS&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240701&pf_rd_i=507846.
But until then, I'll be satisfying the crave by dining out. I think in some ways, Vietnamese cooking at home is more about the challenge than the actual taste - at least for me it is! :)

[tommy]

Hand ground pork shoulder? That's very impressive. I've been doing the same too but your post has just made me think again...

[tommy]

Hand ground pork shoulder? That's very impressive. I've been doing the same too but your post has just made me think again...