Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 38, The Broth and the Banquet
Bún chả
Hanoi
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 hours 20
- Researched
- 9 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Serves 4. Marinate at least 2 hours, ideally overnight, then 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 500 g ground pork shoulder
- 500 g pork belly, skin removed, thin-sliced against the grain
- 3.5 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 3 tbsp caramel colouring (nước hàng)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp seasoning powder
- 1 tsp ground pepper
- 5 to 6 shallots, minced
- 4 to 6 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tbsp oil (for the shoulder pork only)
- to serve bún, lettuce, herbs, to serve
For the nước chấm
- 250 ml water
- 25 ml fish sauce
- 25 g sugar
- 25 ml vinegar
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp minced chilli
Method
- Combine the marinade ingredients, oyster sauce, caramel colouring, honey, seasoning powder, ground pepper, minced shallots and minced garlic, divide between the pork shoulder and the pork belly slices.
- Marinate at least 2 hours, ideally overnight, refrigerated.
- Shape the shoulder pork into small, kumquat-sized balls and flatten slightly.
- Grill both over charcoal, basting occasionally with rendered fat or oil, until evenly golden.
- For the nước chấm, combine the ratio above (water to fish sauce to sugar to vinegar, roughly 10:1:1:1) with salt, garlic and chilli, simmer briefly.
- Serve the grilled pork in the warm nước chấm, alongside bún, lettuce and herbs.
What a modern chef changes
Heat controlled, not maximised, and the fat basting made continuous
Rung 3
Method
- Bank a Big Green Egg's coals into a hot centre and a cooler holding edge, and hold the dome vents to a controlled medium rather than wide open, the same heat discipline Vũ Bằng described a Hanoi street cook achieving by hand-fanning a brazier.
- Baste with the meat's own rendered fat throughout the cook, not once at the start. The fat is doing real flavour work, not decorative shine, since it carries the marinade's own aromatics.
- Watch for the outside to caramelise from the marinade's own sugar and fish sauce, not from the fire alone, and pull the meat before that caramelisation tips into burning; this is the entire difference between a properly rendered bún chả and a dried-out or scorched one.