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Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 61, The Dry Bowl, the Ash Noodle and the Jar Drunk Through a Reed

Nem nướng Ninh Hòa

Ninh Hòa, Khánh Hòa, sold as Nha Trang's

Nem nướng Ninh Hòa, charcoal grilled pork skewers with rice paper, herbs, fried rice paper rolls and a peanut and pork dipping sauce: a platter of bamboo skewers of browned charcoal grilled minced pork with charred edges, beside crisp golden fried rice paper rolls.

Illustration

The grilled nem, with an oral origin among Thanh Hóa settlers and no date. The quantities below are one Vietnamese recipe site's, for about twenty skewers of thirty grams, with the site's seasoning powder left out. The sauce has three forms in the sources: this one of pork and porridge; one of meat, shrimp, pork liver and peanuts simmered five or six hours to a smooth yellow; and a coconut milk and peanut butter shortcut.

As tradition built it

Makes about 20 skewers.

Ingredients

For the nem

  • 600g lean pork shoulder
  • 50g pork fat, diced
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp fish sauce
  • 3 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • 2 tbsp tapioca starch
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 50g shallot, minced

For the sauce

To serve

Method

  1. Mince the pork shoulder and fat cold and coarse, and work in the salt, fish sauce, sugar, pepper, tapioca starch, oil and shallot until the paste holds together.
  2. Shape it round bamboo skewers, a thick finger of meat on each, and chill them 30 minutes.
  3. Grill over charcoal, turning without stopping, until browned through; a batch of twenty takes about an hour.
  4. For the sauce, fry the shallot and garlic in the oil, brown the pork, then blend with the cooled porridge, the peanuts and the sesame, season with the fish sauce and sugar, and simmer until smooth and thick.
  5. Serve the skewers with rice paper, herbs and a fried rice paper roll, to wrap and dip.

What a modern chef changes

The paste bound by the fat, the sauce from the liver

Rung 5

Method

  1. Keep the meat and fat near freezing and grind twice, the fat through the fine plate and the meat through the coarse, then beat the paste in a stand mixer a minute so the proteins bind without tapioca doing all the work.
  2. Grill on the Egg over lump charcoal with the skewers raised on a rack and turned every twenty seconds; it is the Ninh Hòa stall's rhythm on a British patio.
  3. Make the long sauce: pork, shrimp, liver and peanuts simmered five hours, as the second account gives it, then passed; it is the one the stalls are judged by.
  4. Fry the rice paper rolls to order and wrap them in with the nem; the crunch against the soft paste is the point of the set.
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