Cao lầu

Hội An

Illustration

Time: 4 hours 15

Researched: Researched from 50 sources in the brief

The noodle is the dish. Hội An's heritage office says it is made of rice soaked in ash lye from Cù Lao Chàm and water from the Bá Lễ well, which Hội An people say is why it cannot be made anywhere else; the sources differ on whether the well water grinds the rice or cooks the noodle, and on which wood gives the ash. The recipe below is the cook Bùi Thủy's on VnExpress, for four to six, in 75 minutes by her count, with bought Hội An noodles; the noodle weight and the herbs she leaves to the cook.

by Hội An

The Hội An World Heritage office states that Japanese, Chinese and Western merchants traded at Hội An in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that Japanese merchants funded the covered bridge, that the Nguyễn lords let them settle in a Japanese quarter, and that the Chinese built congregation halls, Phúc Kiến and Quảng Đông among five. What the port left on the table is argued over. Cao lầu is told, by an unnamed long time Chinese resident quoted in Infonet, to have appeared in the seventeenth century when the port opened, as a synthesis of many peoples and not from China or Japan alone, its name perhaps from "cao lương mỹ vị", fine delicacies, served upstairs, "lên lầu", to the wealthy. A heritage society page calls the Japanese udon and Chinese wonton theories unconfirmed speculation; VnExpress relays "some Japanese researchers" who see a likeness to the noodles of Ise and says the taste and method differ. Nobody is named and nothing is dated.

Read the history

As tradition built it

Serves 4 to 6. About 75 minutes, after 2 to 3 hours in the marinade, or overnight.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

600g pork, lean shoulder, leg or belly
600g pork bones, for the broth
4 onions
4 cloves garlic
4 tbsp soy sauce
1½ tbsp sugar
1 tbsp caramel, nước màu
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp chilli powder
5g five spice
cao lầu noodles, strand and square
for deep frying oil, for the square noodles
to serve bean sprouts
to serve mint
to serve leafy greens
to serve Trà Quế herbs
to serve Hội An chilli sauce
to serve green chilli
to serve lime

Method

Marinate the pork with the soy, sugar, caramel, salt, pepper, chilli powder and five spice, with the onion and garlic crushed in, for 2 to 3 hours at least and overnight if you can.
Make a broth from the bones. Sear the pork on all sides, fry the onion and garlic from the marinade in the pan, return the pork, cover it with broth and simmer 40 to 50 minutes. Keep the liquor: it is the sauce.
Fry the square noodles in deep oil until they puff. Soak the dried strand noodles for 1 to 2 hours while the pork marinates, then blanch them.
Build each bowl: bean sprouts, noodles, sliced pork, a little of the concentrated liquor, the fried squares, the herbs, lime and chilli. There is not much liquid, and that is right.

What a modern chef changes

The noodle understood as alkaline, the pork as char siu

Rung 3

Method

The lye is the technique: an alkaline soak sets the rice starch firm and turns it yellow, which is the chemistry of ramen's kansui. A cook who understands that can make a noodle in the spirit of cao lầu from rice flour and an alkali; no source gives a dose, so it is yours to test, and no British noodle sold as cao lầu exists.
Cook the marinated pork in a bag at 65 degrees for 12 hours, then glaze it in a hot pan with the reduced liquor so the outside is lacquered and the inside stays pink; it is the braise's intent made exact.
Reduce the liquor to a spoonable glaze and dress the noodle with it in the bowl, not over it; a wet cao lầu is a different dish.
Fry the squares from the same dough rolled thin and dried a day; they are cracklings of noodle, and the pork rind the heritage page mentions can go in beside them.

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