Recipe - Vietnamese-Style Parcels Of Pork With Fresh Herbs

85 g Shallots; thinly cut or sliced up ,
; about
Vegetable or sunflower oil
for deep
; frying
1 small Bunc mint and coriander
6 Spring onions; cut into
4cm/1 1/2"
; lengths and finely
; shredded
2 Red chillies; deseeded and
cut
; into very thin
; rings
Hoisin sauce
12 Leaves crisp lettuce; ie
iceberg

FOR THE PORK FILLING
10 g Dried porcini or shitake
mushrooms; (10 to 15)
3 tablespoon Mirin or sweet sherry
250 g Minced pork
2 tablespoon Fish sauce; (nam pla)
2 Garlic cloves; finely
chopped
1 teaspoon Finely grated fresh root
ginger
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoon Sunflower or vegetable oil
4 Shallots; very finely
chopped

1 Make the pork filling in advance. Soak the dried mushrooms in the mirin
or sherry and cover with water. Leave for 3045 minutes, remove the
mushrooms and chop very finely, discarding the stalks if you used dried
shitake.

2 Let the soaking liquid settle and carefully drain off, leaving any grit
in the bowl. Mix the pork, fish sauce, half the garlic, ginger and lots of
black pepper and leave for One half hour.

3 Heat the oil in a wok or wide frying pan on a medium heat and saute the
shallots and remaining garlic for a few minutes until softened. Raise the
heat to high, add the pork mix and fry for five minutes, breaking up any
lumps, until browned.

4 Add the mushrooms and fry for a minute, add their soaking liquid and
simmer until about evaporated, to leave a moist mix of pork and mushrooms.

5 Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more fish sauce or a pinch of
sugar. Serve cold or reheat just before serving. Heat about 5mm/ 1/4" depth
of oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat.

6 Add the shallots and fry fairly quickly until golden brown and crisp.
Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. They can be fried
several days in advance and stored in a wellsealed container in the
fridge.

7 Shortly before serving pick the leaves off the mint and put in a bowl.
Cut the lower part of the stalks off the coriander, leaving only 3cm/1 1/4"
stalk and all the leaves. Pile into a bowl.

8 Put the fried shallots into a separate bowl and spring onions and
chillies into more bowls. The hoisin sauce goes into yet another bowl and
placed in the centre of the table.

9 Pile the lettuce leaves high in a bowl (don't worry if a few are torn in
half they'll make slightly smaller parcels).

10 Add a spoonful of fried pork in the centre of a lettuce leaf. Over that
add a sprinkling of fried shallots, mint leaves, coriander sprigs, spring
onion, chilli if desired and a drizzle of hoisin sauce. The edges of the
lettuce leaf are folded over as best you can.

Converted by MC_Buster.

Recipe by: Sophie Grigson's Herbs

Converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.