Recipe: Bánh Cuốn With Roasted Pork Belly
By Leluu
A great favourite at Fernandez and Leluu Supper Club is our Bánh Cu?n With Roasted Pork Belly in Soy and Five Spice. You can add “nem” – which is cured, pickled pork ham with vermicelli and garlic. Its also great with the very traditional Vietnamese ham called, “Cha – So 1”. You can buy them both at any Vietnamese supermarket.
We combine the two different hams and the pork belly together to create this dish but you can choose if you should include all or just one or two. Bánh Cu?n is delicious just with soy sauce and a sprinkle of dried shallots in my opinion.
Ingredients for 8
Pork Belly Marinade
1kg of pork belly -(Choose a meaty slab)
1 tbsp five spice
1 tbsp roast red pork seasoning mix (star anise, cinnamon – powder)
1 tsp pork granules flavouring
1 tbsp soy sauce
pinch of salt
2 tbsp or a splash of red wine
(2 lime juice, 2 tbsp honey- at the end)
Adjust to your perfect balance
These are the pork granules/ flavouring from Knorr. Looking at the ingredients, its not the best thing for you, so we wouldn’t recommend you eat the whole pack or pork belly every day ; )
Bánh Cu?n
3 or 4 x Bánh Cu?n packs
coriander, thai basil
pickled & dried shallots
Fish Sauce For Bánh Cu?n, Bánh Xèo, & Spring Rolls (don’t add water in the sauce)
1 tsp chilli
1 tsp garlic
500ml hot water
4 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp (Aspall) cider vinegar
Always use premium quality fish sauce like Three Crabs – there is no point in using cheap brands, like The Squid, it will taste bad!
Adjust to taste, get the right balance of sweet, sour, hot and salty.
Method
-Combine all ingredients onto the pork belly, prick the meat with a knife so that all the flavours can seep through.
-Hang to marinate or dry skin side up 1 or 2 hours, dry off any excess fluid on the skin to so that it becomes crispy. Score the skin. Rub some of the marinade over the skin and in between the scoring. Then rub the skin side with some olive oil or regular oil to ensure a crispy crackling.
-Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 90 mins with the skin side up.
-90 mins in, squeeze the juice of limes and combine with honey and pour on top of the skin and back on high heat for 10 mins to get the skin very crispy and crackling.
Rest. Slice up when cool.
-Open packs of Bánh Cu?n and peel into smaller 1 inch strips. In the summer, you can eat this cold. If you prefer warm, steam or heat in microwave.
-Lay onto plate/ bowl, place pork belly (the hams) on top with coriander, thai sweet basil and/ or cockscombe mint, pickled shallots and sprinkle on dried shallots.
-When ready to serve, pour on fish sauce
This crispy roasted pork belly is excellent for parties, salads, with rice or in summer rolls. Its very easy to prepare so you can get on with other things for your dinner party.
