Bun Cha: Vietnamese grilled pork with rice vermicelli

Making Bun Cha is one of those things I've been meaning to make but some how never got around to it until yesterday. I sought out this dish during my trip to Vietnam after hearing numerous mouth-watering descriptions (including on LTH by jbambuti and REB). The flavor combination is amazing and I developed a little obsession for seeking it out which culminated in the need to take a cooking class where I learned how to make it. I reported on my Bun Cha adventures here. Bun Cha Hanoi is Hanoi-style street food which is really a combination of several things: lemongrass grilled pork, lemongrass grilled pork meatballs, bun (rice vermicelli) and sometimes Vietnamese egg roll (called nem in Hanoi). It's served with a sauce broth with carrot and kohlrabi or green papaya. This is an easy dish to make except for the egg roll which is a bit labor intense and, in my case, caused a nice film of oil to settle over my kitchen.
Here goes:

Nem:
Filling includes ground pork, chopped shrimp, onion, garlic, shallot, shredded carrot and kohlrabi, cilantro, mint, scallion, fish sauce and egg.



I've always used rice paper to wrap fresh Vietnamese spring rolls, but the friendly proprietor at Golden Pacific recommended tapioca paper because they are less brittle so I tried these yesterday and found them easy to work with.



I don't deep-fry very often--I know there's a bit of subtlety to it (oil temp, depth, etc.). I thought the nem tasted great but they were a little greasy and splotchy. If I do this again, I'll definitely seek LTH advice and read up. Still a success in my book though.



The pork (half ground shoulder, half strips of shoulder, though next time I plan to use pork belly) is combined with shallots, honey, oil, fish sauce, pepper, a few drops of coconut caramel and lemongrass). The ground pork is shaped into meat balls. I got these cute little grill racks in Hanoi so I could make Bun Cha 'authentically'. I grilled the sliced pork on skewers since I only have two racks.




Bun Cha is served, as just about everything in Vietnam seems to be, with a salad plate (lettuce, culantro, cilantro, basil, mint) and nuoc cham (lemon juice, chile, fish sauce, shredded carrot and green papaya or kohlrabi). In our class, the instructor An said that usually kohlrabi is used. I was surprised by this and I bought papaya and kohlrabi to do a side by side comparison. They are surprisingly similar--I preferred the kohlrabi both for taste and crunch.



The whole spread made for a nice garden picnic.




I forgot to take a picture of how this is eaten. You add rice vermicelli, meat and pieces of egg roll to a bowl of nuoc cham (diluted with a little water). You can wrap up a little of everything in a lettuce leaf with some herbs to make little packets or eat everything out of the bowl.

Here's a link to a video of Bun Cha in Hanoi.

Wow, just beautiful. I crave Vietnamese food in the summer.

Hi,

I was at H-Mart yesterday specifically to buy those grill racks, which cost $4.99. They several sizes to choose from, mentioned in case you need more. I will use it for making bulgogi today for lunch.

Your Bun Cha is very inspiring. Great tip on the tapioca skins, because the rice are not easy to work with. I always think of kohlrabi as a European vegetable, I never dreamed it was used in Vietnamese or any Asian cuisine.

Thanks!

Regards,

thanks to this thread I am hopingto be doing some spring rolls for dinner(if I can find the rice wrappers out west. Sounds like a perfect compliment to some tea smoked chicken(and duck if I can find one), and some spare rib fried rice(recipe inspiration from Low and Slow).

thanks

Great thread w/ delectable looking pics. Thanks for sharing (I can always live vicariously).

Great work. I hope to give this a try sometime. Hanoi really is a great city for eating. I could go back every year, or more.

Bun cha, round 2.
I made a quick version of bun cha (i.e. only the pork meatballs and salad plate) and found this to be a relatively easy weeknight dinner. Basically, I mixed ground pork with fish sauce, shallots, honey, a few drops of coconut caramel, minced garlic, chopped lemongrass, a little canola oil (I skipped the step of pounding the shallots, garlic and lemongrass into a paste) to make little meatballs. My nuoc cham recipe is 2:2:2:1 ratio of rice vinegar, lime or lemon juice, fish sauce and sugar with some minced garlic, minced chiles and shredded veggies (I used bell peppers, carrots and kohlrabi). The salad plate is the same veggies, lettuce, mint, holy basil and cilantro. I'm really digging the fresh rice noodles I get from Golden Pacific. You basically pour boiling water over them, wait 30 seconds and drain them and Voila!


Edited to add: I disolve the sugar in boiling water before adding it to nuoc cham (so, it should be 2:2:2:1:1 the second 1 being water) and to correct grammar and spelling, doh!