Bun cha Obama (Bun thit nuong) – Vietnamese grilled pork and meatball with rice vermicelli

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Happy New Year 2017 everybody! Wish you all the best for a very happy new year ^^, and of course, wish you could enjoy lots of delicious food <3. For me, just wish that I could have more time to work harder to post so many more recipes and entries :D …

To make something fresh for a new year, today I made Bun cha or Bun thit nuong (Vietnamese grilled pork and meatball with rice vermicelli) and put some decoration. Look at this photo, I am eating with my eyes lol

I’m so excited to share my recipe of making Bun cha or Bun thit nuong and more importantly, three ways of making grilled pork and meatball. I know it sounds too much but I believe that sometime in somewhere you might need it. In Vietnam, the tradition way to make Bun cha is using charcoal to grill pork and meat balls. However, it’s not easy for me to have the same tools in foreign countries and the weather is not always nice to have a BBQ outside, especially for winter time. Therefore, I’ve tried several ways to make it. Hope it would help you guys to be successful with this dish no matter what tools you have or during any kind of weather ;)

This is Bun cha – Hanoi version or nowadays a lot of people would know it as “Bun cha Obama”. In 2016, Barack Obama joined Antony Bourdain for dinner in Hanoi in his visit to our country. This is a big event for us when a US president came and sat down to try our street food in a very simple way. This made Bun cha a famous dish and even changed the name of it to “Bun Obama” to refer to Bun cha.  So hey, wait! You don’t have to go to Hanoi to try this, just keep calm and try my recipe at your own kitchen.

1. Ingredients: serves 4 – 6 people

• For grilled pork:
  • 2.5 lbs ( around 1.13 kg) boneless pork shoulder (I prefer parts that have a little more fat because it would make the grilled pork more tender and taste better)
  • 3 ½ Tablespoons minced shallot
  • 3 ½ Tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 teaspoons salt
  • ½ teaspoon pepper
  • 2 Tablespoon brown sugar or granulated sugar (I prefer brown sugar ‘cause it makes the grilled pork look nicer)
  • 2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• For grilled meatball:
  • 1.5 lb (0.68 kg) ground pork
  • 2 ½  Tablespoon minced shallot
  • 2 Tablespoons fish sauce
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • 1 Tablespoon brown sugar or granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 2-3 carrots
  • 1 kohlrabi
  • 1 lb dried rice vermicelli
  • 1 package of lettuce
  • 1 package of Asian herbs or I just use cilantro, which is fine.

• For the sauce:
  • ¾ cup fish sauce (180 ml)
  • ½ cup granulated sugar (115 grams)
  • ½ cup rice vinegar (120 ml)
  • 2 liters of water
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon minced chili (or to taste)

2. Instructions:

• For the meat: Slide the pork into pieces with 0.5 cm thickness (like in the below photos), then add all other ingredients: minced shallot, fish sauce, salt, pepper, sugar and cooking oil in a big bow. Mix the meat well then refrigerate to marinate in about 4 hours (I usually marinate overnight).

 

• For the meatball (cha): combine all the ingredients and mix well. Marinate in the fridge for about 4 hours or overnight. Before grilling, just take it out and form the mixture to a small flat meatball.

 

• 3 ways to grill meat and meatball: While you preheat your grill, take the meat out for about 20 minutes to bring them to room temperature.
  • Way 1 – Using a frying pan (prefer non-stick pan): Preheat the pan to Med-hi heat. Spray cooking oil and spread piece by piece to the pan. Grill each side for about 1 minute or until golden brown. The meatball would take a little bit longer time. You don’t have to put a lot of oil; otherwise it would be come fried pork, not grilled pork. Don’t over crowd the pan.

• • Way 2 – Using a conventional oven (Broiler): Preheat oven (broil) at 400 F (or 204 C). To make it faster, I usually use skewers with the pork. It would be easier to turn the side of the pork if you use skewers. Remember to put the skewers and meatball on the rack so that the heat will flow and we can achieve golden brown grilled pork and meatball. I broil each side for about 2 minutes (depends on your oven)

• • Way 3 – Using an Indoor electric Cha-B-Q: This way works best for me. Instead of using charcoal, this uses electric to grill. I use the traditional tool from Vietnam to grill pork and meatball (see below pictures). Just grill each side until the pork and meatball become golden brown.

 

• For the sauce: The sauce should be light enough so that you can drink it (not too salty, not too sweet nor too sour). You might recognize that this is a very common sauce for Vietnamese food. You can use this sauce for Pho Cuon (Rolling Pho).
  • Slide carrots and kohlrabi thinly and put 1 teaspoon salt to soften them. Leave it aside for about 20 mins. After that rinse out with water and put in a bow. Put 1 Tablespoon sugar and ½ Tablespoon vinegar. Mix them well then set it aside.

• • In a small pot, put water, fish sauce, granulated sugar and bring to boil. Turn off the heat, and put vinegar, minced garlic and minced chill. Put the mixture of carrots and kohlrabi. Taste the sauce again. It should be somewhere salty but a little bit sour and also sweet.

• Follow the instruction to boil the rice vermicelli. Rinse in cold water when it’s done so that the vermicelli will not be sticky. If the noodles are too long, you can cut into half.
• Clean and rinse the lettuce and herbs.

Alright! So now you are ready to serve. In Hanoi, we will serve the meat (including meatball), vermicelli and the salad separately. So everybody will get the own bow with the sauce, and then they can feel free to put meat, vermicelli and salad just how they like. This is just a small sample of how Hanoi people eat Bun cha.

Once again, happy New Year to everyone! Stay tune and wait for my next post about how to grill “Cha” for Bun Cha Obama with charcoal to have a full 100% flavor of our authentic Bun Cha ;)