When I visited Hanoi a decade ago, I was living in Hackney, east London, an area with a large Vietnamese community, so I felt, if not quite an expert, at least a little familiar with the cuisine. But it turned out no number of nights out on Kingsland Road could prepare me for the assault on the senses that was my first meal in the city, crouched on a plastic stool by the roadside and enjoying what Uyen Luu describes as “the irresistible sweet, treacly smell of barbecued patties and caramelised pork”, all mingled with traffic fumes.
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The stall in question served one thing only: bún chả, a northern speciality of juicy chargrilled pork, cold, slippery rice noodles, sweet yet deeply savoury nước chấm dipping sauce and fistfuls of aromatic herbs. “About as typical and unique a Hanoi dish as there is,” as Anthony Bourdain explained to Barack Obama over bowls of the stuff in 2016, there’s something about the way you can pick and mix the different elements to make every bite unique that makes this pure joy to eat.
Felicity’s prototype perfect bun cha. All thumbnail photographs by Felicity Cloake.
Chef and restaurateur Bobby Chinn describes bún chả as “a great example of the art of Vietnamese grilling”, and says it’s made with either “thin strips of pork belly grilled until the meat is slightly crisp and smoky, or as little burgers. I generally prefer the latter, because these burgers are quite unique.” Very often the two options are served together, as in Uyen Luu and Vy Tran’s recipes, in which pork belly slices are marinated in a mixture of fish sauce, sugar, garlic, shallots and black pepper for several hours before grilling (Tran freezes the meat for 45 minutes or so to facilitate cutting, though a butcher should be able to save you the trouble). Delicious as they are, I’m inclined to agree with Chinn that the pork patties are the real crowdpleasers, so they will be the stars of my recipe, too (if you’d like the whole shooting match, by all means replace half the pork mince with thin strips of skinless pork belly, and divide the marinade between the two).
As almost everyone notes, this dish needs to be made with fairly fatty meat, “which helps it”, Chinn says, “retain incredible moisture, simultaneously allowing the fat to melt, sweating the meat with drips of fat into the fire allows for a more smoky flavour”. A minimum of 20% fat is ideal; my butcher makes it with shoulder, which seems to work as well as the belly specified by some writers.
Uyen Luu’s bun cha displays ‘the irresistible sweet, treacly smell of barbecued patties and caramelised pork’.
Given the full-flavoured dipping sauce with which the patties are served, my testers prefer those that aren’t loaded with sugar or salty soy or oyster sauce. Luu’s book Vietnam, and Chinn’s Vietnamese Food both start with a caramel sauce, the latter using palm sugar heated until it begins to smoke for a dark, complex sweetness. Though I’m sure he’s right that this is “the one additive that should never be omitted”, in practice, my testers prefer the more savoury, porky patties, which I’m relieved about, because mixing hot sugar syrup and cold pork is more difficult than it sounds. As a nod to those caramel sauces, however (an ingredient I do love in recipes such as red boat pork belly), I’ve gone for food writer Vicky Pham’s brown variety, which, she says “helps to caramelise and char the pork patties and provide a sweet sticky glaze when grilled”. It’s all balanced with a dash of fish sauce; for extra savouriness, you could also pop in a pinch of MSG or powdered stock, as Luu suggests.
Vicky Pham’s bun cha ‘is the only recipe I find that features lemongrass’.
I also really like Pham’s chopped lemongrass, but as hers is the only recipe I find that features it (lemongrass is, I’m reliably informed, more common in the cooking of the south), I’ve left it out. Chopped shallots are fairly standard, however (if you go to a specialist supermarket for the herbs and noodles, see if they have small red Asian shallots, which are both more fiddly and more pungent than their larger European counterparts), while Luke Nguyen also adds garlic, chives and spring onion, though finely chopped garlic is more common.
The only spice in any of the recipes I try is freshly ground black pepper, but two recipes, from Pham’s website and Nguyen’s book The Songs of Sapa (another extraordinarily beautiful place) use roasted rice powder and beaten egg to bind the patties. I don’t have a problem with them falling apart once the meat has been chilled to firm up, though, so I wouldn’t bother.
(Non pork-eating readers could substitute minced turkey or chicken, though their lower fat content means you will probably need to add beaten egg; or try a plant-based version and report back.)
The cooking
Luke Nguyen adds garlic, chives and spring onion to his pork patty mix.
Although the larger patties preferred by Luu and Tran remain juicier during cooking, my testers prefer the convenience and smokier flavour of the bite-sized ones in other recipes, especially when they’ve been cooked on a barbecue. Not that this is the only option: following alternative suggestions from the recipes, I try them, in order of preference: baked (which works, as would an air fryer, though I’d flash them under a hot grill at the end to try to achieve a bit of charring), a frying pan, an overhead grill and, the second best option to getting out the charcoal, a hot griddle pan. As if reading my mind, Tran writes on Serious Eats that, “while it might be convenient to cook the pork in a stovetop grill pan, the result will lack the smoky flavour and char essential to bún chả.” While undeniably true, I promise that either way the results will be so delicious that you’re unlikely to be wracked with regret. (Note, if you do go down the barbecue route, a fish cage will make turning the meatballs easier.)
The dipping sauce
According to Pham, “while the pork is integral to bún chả, it’s the dipping sauce (nước chấm) that makes or breaks the meal”, because it helps bring together the disparate parts into one unified whole. Tran offers a useful guide for novices: “To eat bún chả, taste the dipping sauce first before adding other condiments or accompaniments such as raw garlic or sliced bird’s eye chilli … Add fresh herbs to the bowl and throw a small heap of vermicelli noodles in the dipping sauce. Take your chopsticks and pick up the noodles along with meat, pickled vegetables and fresh herbs.”
Nước chấm is based on fish sauce, preferably a traditionally fermented Vietnamese version that tends to be less harshly salty than cheaper cooking varieties, and sugar. Pham, who is based in California, also uses a Puerto Rican brand of coconut soda in hers, which is tough to track down in the UK, so I substitute coconut water – but, in the end, most of my testers prefer the punchier, zestier notes of sauces that feature more lime juice and rice vinegar than coconut sweetness. (Vinegar is often provided on the table along with sliced garlic and bird’s eye chilli, so you can adjust to taste.)
Bobby Chinn’s bun cha: ‘Pork patties are real crowdpleasers.’
Interestingly, opinions vary as to the desirable temperature of said sauce; Luu, Chinn and Pham serve it at room temperature, and Nguyen and Tran steaming hot, with the latter writing approvingly that at Bún Chả Đắc Kim in Hanoi, “the dipping sauce was boiling when the cook ladled it into the bowl containing the meat. Given how fatty the patties and pork slices are, the high temperature prevents fat droplets from coagulating at the top”. According to Mervin Lee of the Michelin Guide Vietnam, it’s a weather thing: “The broth is served cool in summer for a refreshing contrast to the smoky pork and gently warmed in winter, infusing each bite with comforting heat”. In other words, it’s up to you.
The pickles and vegetables
Not all the recipes I try include pickled vegetables, but I’m a fan: the vinegar cuts through the fattiness of the pork, while the vegetables themselves add yet another texture and flavour to the party. Green papaya (which you’ll probably need to go to an south-east Asian grocers for) is, I think, the ideal, but as crunch is the point here, thinly sliced carrot, kohlrabi and radish also work well. (If you don’t have time for pickling, Pham’s slices of cucumber or Nguyen’s beansprouts make fine substitutes.)
Lettuce leaves are also a nice touch, but the essential thing to finish this dish are herbs – and in quantity. Though fish mint and Vietnamese coriander prove elusive even in central London, Thai basil is becoming much easier to find, and perilla (shiso) is increasingly available, too. If you don’t have the luxury of specialists nearby, however, rest assured that the important thing is the punch of aromatics that fresh herbs deliver, so a fistful of fresh coriander and mint will do much the same job.
The noodles
Vy Tran’s bun cha: ‘The smoky flavour and char is essential.’
Very little dissent here: rice vermicelli is the move on the bún chả front, though Pham specifies medium-sized round rice noodles (which I misread and end up with medium-size flat rice ones, instead. Worse things happen at sea, as my grandma would say, had she ever had a rice noodle). The noodles are served cold, so you can prepare them, like almost all the elements of this dish, in advance, making it an excellent choice for a relaxed barbecue party.
Perfect bún chả
Prep 30 min
Chill 15 min+
Pickle 2 hr
Cook 8 min
Serves 4
For the patties
400g pork mince – not too lean, ideally
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp finely chopped shallots
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
Oil, for greasing the griddle or grill bars, and your hands
For the pickles
200g carrot, radish (eg, daikon), kohlrabi and/or green papaya
2 tbsp rice vinegar
20g sugar
¼ tsp fine salt
For the dipping sauce
150ml fish sauce
150ml rice vinegar
100g sugar
Juice of 5 limes
To serve
300g rice vermicelli
1 small head of lettuce
1 generous handful mixed fresh herbs – perilla, Thai basil, mint, coriander
4 bird’s eye chilli, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
Put all the ingredients for the patties bar the oil in a large bowl, mix well, then use greased hands to tear off small pieces and roll into bite-sized meatballs. Slightly flatten each ball, then put in the fridge to chill and firm up for at least 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, peel and finely slice the pickling vegetables into rounds or strands, then put in a bowl or jar.
Heat the vinegar, sugar and salt in a small pan, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt, then tip over the vegetables, mix well and leave to sit, tossing occasionally, ideally for at least a couple of hours.
Put the fish sauce, rice vinegar and sugar for the dipping sauce in a saucepan with 600ml water, and heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.
Cook the noodles according to packet instructions, then drain, refresh and set aside.
Prepare a barbecue, or lightly grease a griddle pan and set it on a medium-high heat (if using a fish cage for the barbecue, lightly grease that, or the grill bars themselves).
Grill the patties for 10-12 minutes, turning once, until cooked through and well charred all over.
While they’re cooking, separate, wash and dry the lettuce, then arrange the leaves on a large plate. Put the picked, washed herb leaves and the sliced chilli and garlic alongside. Put the drained noodles in a separate dish and bring out the pickles and some extra vinegar.
Reheat the dipping sauce, if you want to serve it warm, then stir in the lime juice.
Divide the sauce between four bowls. Add a couple of the pork patties to each bowl and serve the rest alongside the pickles, noodles and salad plate.
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Fellow bún chả fans, where makes your favourite version (has anyone been to Bún Chả Hương Liên for the Combo Obama?), and what are your top tips for making it at home?