In Vietnamese cuisine, the most famous dish has to be phở. However another famous glass noodle dish in Vietnamese cuisine is Bun Cha.
Different from Pho, Bun Cha is usually served with grilled pork cutlets. It is a refreshing and light dish which is cooked with rice noodles (Bun), pork patties (Cha), and thinly sliced pork shoulder. It is also eaten with fresh Vietnamese herbs and a sweet chilli papaya dipping sauce.
The combination of charcoal-grilled pork cutlet and sweet chilli sauce is so refreshing and savoury and makes this dish a very popular Vietnamese dish as well.
Ingredients:
- 500 g of ground pork
- 500 g of thinly sliced pork shoulder
- 3 tablespoons of fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
- 2 teaspoons of homemade caramel cooking sauce (Nuoc Mau) or 1/2 teaspoon thick soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of chicken stock powder or vegetable stock powder
- 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon of ground pepper
- ¼ cup of minced lemongrass
- 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
- Assorted vegetables (lettuce, bean sprouts, mint, perilla, and/or sliced cucumber)
- 2 packets of rice vermicelli
- 2 cups sliced unripe green papaya
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup hot water
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup of fish sauce
- 3 tablespoons of lime juice
- 2 cups coconut soda (Coco Rico)
- 6 minced garlic cloves
- 2 thinly sliced Thai chilli peppers
Directions:
- To marinate the pork cutlet, combine the fish sauce, oyster sauce, caramel cooking sauce chicken or vegetable stock powder, sugar, ground pepper, lemongrass and garlic. Marinate the pork cutlet and pork shoulder separately for 30 minutes or overnight for better flavour.
- Roll the ground pork into small patties.
- Grill the pork shoulder and pork patties over a charcoal fire or bake it in the oven for 400°F for 10 minutes.
- To make the dipping sauce, combine sliced papaya and salt and wait for 30 minutes. Rinse off the salt with running cold water and squeeze out excess water and put it aside to dry.
- In a medium-size bowl, dissolve sugar in water and add in fish sauce, lime juice, coconut soda, garlic and chilli peppers. Then add in the sliced papaya into the sauce.
- Cook the rice noodles as per the instructions.
- To serve the dish, prepare a small portion of pork and add sweet papaya chilli sauce onto the pork. Serve it with a side of rice noodles and also Vietnamese herbs and vegetables.