🇻🇳 How to Make Bun Cha

Craving Bun Cha? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Bun Cha at home, in about 40 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 300g pork mince (20% fat — lean mince makes bouncy patties)
• 150g pork belly, thinly sliced
• Marinade: 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp honey, 3 cloves garlic, 2 shallots minced, 1 tsp pepper
• Dipping broth: 4 tbsp fish sauce, 4 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp rice vinegar, 1½ cups warm water
• ½ green papaya or 1 carrot, thinly sliced
• 200g rice vermicelli, cooked and cooled
• lettuce, mint, coriander, perilla, sliced garlic and chilli

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Mix the marinade and split it between the mince and the belly slices. Leave both for 30 min minimum.
2. Shape the mince into loose flat patties about 1cm thick, handling them as little as possible. Compressed patties turn springy and rubbery.
3. Grill the patties and belly over charcoal if you possibly can, otherwise under a very hot grill, 3–4 min a side until properly charred at the edges. The smoke is half of this dish.
4. Make the dipping broth warm rather than hot: dissolve the sugar in the warm water first, then add the fish sauce and vinegar. Taste it — it should be mild enough to drink, because you effectively will.
5. Drop the sliced papaya or carrot into the broth to pickle while the pork finishes grilling.
6. Slide the hot grilled pork straight into the bowl of broth and let it sit and soak. This is the step people leave out, and it is the entire idea of bun cha.
7. Serve the bowl of pork-in-broth alongside the cold noodles and a mountain of herbs. Dunk noodles and herbs into the broth bowl a chopstickful at a time.