i've got a lovely bún chả.

Even without the rice noodles and nước chấm, this is totally worth doing, but yes doing the whole thing as intended is probably pretty spectacular (stolen from here). Basically you make a quick Vietnamese caramel sauce for 8 minutes, cool it down, then add that plus shallot, fish sauce, etc to the ground pork and let it marinate for a couple hours. Then make small patties or balls out of the mixture and pan-fry or bake them and serve them with nuoc cham, lettuce leaves for wrapping and fresh herbs. Or also with rice noodles as originally intended (in fact, the noodles are the bún, so really my version without them is just...chả?).

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bun cha (vietnamese pork meatballs).

2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp cold water

450g/1 pound ground pork or pork/beef mix
1 large shallot, or half a red onion, minced fine
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp cilantro, chopped fine
1 red Holland chile or jalapeño, seeded and minced (optional)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 head iceberg or Bibb lettuce

fresh cilantro

fresh mint

sriracha
homemade quick cucumber pickle

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