Recipe(tried): Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Rice Papers

Here's a recipe for Vietnamese grilled pork served with rice papers. (I don't know its name in Vietnamese.) I think it's the same basic marinade that's used for the pork-and-noodles dish.

Grilled Pork with Rice Papers

This roll-your-own dish is fun for guests to assemble at the table. The meat needs to be sliced thinly, something easiest to do if you freeze it slightly before slicing against the grain.

Serves 6 as an appetizer

5 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 pound pork tenderloin, sliced thinly

2 cups fresh mint leaves
2 cups fresh cilantro sprigs
2 cups fresh basil sprigs
1 cucumber, seeded and cut julienne
1 carrot, cut julienne
12 rice paper wrappers (plus a few extra to allow
for breakage)
1 tablespoon roast peanuts, chopped
1 recipe Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese Dipping Sauce -- see recipe below)

Combine first 5 ingredients. Add pork and marinate 15 minutes while preparing remaining ingredients.

Arrange herbs and vegetables around the perimeter of a platter. Stack dry rice papers on a plate. Place dipping sauce in a small serving bowl with a spoon.

Spray a nonstick grill or pan with cooking spray and heat over medium high for several minutes. Drain pork from marinate. Grill in small batches, cook quickly until meat changes color. Remove pork to the platter as it is cooked, covering it with foil to keep warm. When all the pork is cooked, sprinkle the top with chopped peanuts to garnish.

Meanwhile, half-fill a shallow bowl (the restaurant where we first had them used a Pyrex pie pan) with hot water.

Bring the platter of cooked meat and vegetables to the table, along with the plate of rice papers, the pie pan of hot water, and the bowl of dipping sauce.

To eat, each diner takes a wrapper and dips it in water for a few seconds to soften (use chopsticks or tongs), places a few slices of pork on the wrapper along with desired herbs and vegetables, then rolls it up like a taco and spoons on dipping sauce as desired.

Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce)

With a heady balance of sweet, sour, and salty flavors, this is the most commonly served sauce in the Vietnamese repertoire, and the best-known to Americans who dine in Vietnamese restaurants.

It's great as a dip for almost every appetizer or entree-fresh or deep-fried rice paper rolls, and grilled beef or pork being just some suggestions. In Vietnam, it's also tossed into fried rice as a table sauce. It also makes a wonderful salad dressing.

Makes about 2/3 cup

1 fresh red hot chile, minced, or 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper or Chinese chili sauce
juice of 2 lemons or 3 limes
1/4 cup fish sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons finely shredded carrots

In a medium bowl, soak the chile or crushed red pepper in the lemon or lime juice 2 to 3 minutes (if using chili sauce, simply mix with other ingredients). Add fish sauce, sugar and garlic, stirring to dissolve sugar. Just before serving, add the carrots.