All proceeds from this fabulous book go to KOTO, an Australian charity working to help Vietnamese street kids learn skills and find employment in hospitality.
I'm fast learning that there are many differences between the way the northerners and southerners prepare what I had thought were standard Vietnamese dishes and that some recipes, such as Bun Cha, my favourite street food in Hanoi, are ubiquitous in the north and rare in the south.
With that in mind I sat down with Thuy (my housekeeper) and showed her the KOTO cookbook pages with our favourite dishes from Hanoi. Bun Cha, Bo La Lot and Cha Ca were the three recipes I pointed out as our firm favourites from the north. Hint, hint - please cook these for my family!
Tonight when I walked in the door from work, I was greeted by the glorious smell of chargrilled pork. Bun Cha! Not as sweet, mind you, as smelling Bun Cha as it wafts around the streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi, but it came close.
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| Homemade Bun Cha! |
Bun Cha is pork grilled on a small charcoal burner served with bun (noodles) dipped in a salty and spicy broth-like sauce served with a range of vegetables such as coriander, shallots and bean sprouts. The pork is done in two ways - one a soft pork pattie, the other a slightly chewy pork belly piece. Absolutely delicious!
Apparently there are a small handul of eateries in Saigon that serve Bun Cha Hanoi style. I am yet to try them, but for the moment I am just happy that Thuy was good enough to reproduce the northern version at home!
PS - the roasted peanuts you may have spotted in the photo are not typically standard Bun Cha fare, not in Hanoi at least, but they were pretty damn good!
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