Bun cha: the pride of Northern Vietnam
A visit to Vietnam isn’t complete without eating bun cha – lots and lots of bun cha. The dish consists of various cuts of pork, caramelized and roasted over the barbecue.
The meat is served in a sweet-and-sour soup, to which the meat lends a smoky flavor. It also comes with a plate of fresh herbs, shiso leaves, lettuce and thin rice noodles. You can add the fresh herbs and shiso leaves to the soup for extra flavor, briefly dipping the noodles into it before eating them. Feeling creative? Place all the ingredients in a lettuce leaf, roll it up and dip it in the soup.
Bun cha in Hanoi
If you’re ever lucky enough to be in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, you won’t be able to escape the smoky aroma on every street corner. I had the best bun cha at a nameless street stall on the corner of Hàng Bạc and Mã Mây. If you’d like to follow in the footsteps of our hero Anthony Bourdain and President Obama, take a trip to Bun Cha Huong Lien, also in the capital.
Get cooking
No trip to Vietnam planned? Don’t panic, we have a recipe for you. You’ll get the best results with a barbecue, but you can also simply use a pan.
This bun cha contains meatballs. You’ll usually also get pork belly, pork tenderloin or other cuts of pork with it. Want to go all out? Marinate these cuts of meat in the ingredients you use for the ground meat, then place them on the barbecue.
How to make bun cha
Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and cook over high heat until you have a brown caramel sauce, about 5 minutes. The water shouldn’t evaporate completely; you can add a little extra water at the end, otherwise the caramel will become too hard and you won’t be able to mix it properly into the meatballs.
In a large bowl, mix the remaining ingredients for the meatballs with the caramel sauce you made in step 1. It tastes best if you let this marinate for about an hour (or 2), but in principle you can also start making the meatballs right away.
Meanwhile, make the broth by mixing all the ingredients for it in a bowl.
Shape the mixture into approximately 16 meatballs. Barbecue the meatballs until they’re crispy and caramelized on the outside, and cooked through but not dry on the inside. No barbecue? Heat oil in a pan and add the meatballs once it’s hot.
Make sure there aren’t too many meatballs in the pan; you need enough room to turn them occasionally. If there are too many in the pan at once, they’ll also release a lot of moisture, causing the meatballs to boil instead of fry (= less crispy). Fry them for about 8 to 10 minutes, making sure all sides are deliciously crisp.
Place whole lettuce leaves and the fresh herbs together in a bowl, and put the noodles in a separate bowl. Divide the meatballs among 4 bowls and pour the soup over them. Dip the noodles in the sauce and eat them with the meatballs, lettuce and herbs.
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