Street Food - Vietnamese Pork Meatballs

 

This is a nice easy recipe which makes for a delicious bowl of Vietnamese deliciousness! These meatballs are often served with noodles (called Bun Cha) but I chose to serve mine with some pickled vegetables and rice.

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

500g minced pork

2 tablespoons garlic and ginger paste

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon lime zest

For the pickled vegetables:

1 carrot, grated

1/2 cucumber, sliced thinly

1 pepper, sliced thinly

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

To serve:

200g boiled white rice

1 bottle sweet chilli sauce

Put the meatball ingredients in a bowl and using your hands, combine everything until it's well mixed. Take about a tablespoon of mixture at a time and roll into a ball then press down slightly to flatten the meatball. I baked my meatballs in the oven (about 20 minutes at 200 C) but you could fry them in a pan with a little oil. Whichever you prefer.

Mix the prepared vegetables in a bowl then mix together the dressing ingredients. Combine them well then pour over the veg, tossing to cover everything.

When the meatballs are ready place a few on a bed of rice and place a portion of the pickled vegetables next to them. Drizzle over the chilli sauce and enjoy!

We really enjoyed this street food. The flavours were sharp with the vinegar and chilli sauce, which flavoured the rice well. The vegetables gave some crunch in contrast to the meaty pork meatballs. It was really tasty and we were sorry when we'd eaten it all!