Hello, hi! I hope you are having a good week so far. Today I am sharing my recipe for these pork, lime and ginger meatballs with you: they are super duper speedy to make whilst still being packed full of all the best Vietnamese flavours.
My sister, a fellow food fanatic, went travelling around Vietnam recently and discovered all the delights of it’s cuisine. This weekend she was craving a dish she had loved in Hanoi called Bun Cha, so we ventured out on a rainy Sunday in London to sate this hankering. We discovered an amazing Vietnamese restaurant in Shoreditch called Bun Bun Bun (which I thoroughly recommend). Poppy successfully got her pork Bun Cha, in case you were wondering, whilst I rediscovered how much I adore Vietnamese food and was inspired to create this recipe.
The joy of meatballs is that you can basically throw together and fry up a mixture of and meats and seasonings and create something delicious. I do this here, but I also dip them in a soy honey glaze and sprinkle over sesame seeds, just to bring in an extra level of yumminess. These meatballs are then piled on top of lime tossed rice noodles and a fresh herb and red cabbage salad and drizzled with the excess glaze and are ready to serve. I recommend making the meatballs the night before you want to cook them so the flavours can mingle and marinate and it makes this dish so quick to make for a midweek supper.
Serves 2 people
20 minutes to prepare
10 minutes to cook
Ingredients
- 250g minced pork
- 3 cloves of garlic, grated
- 1 thumb of ginger, peeled and grated
- 1/2 of a red chili, deseeded and minced
- 2 handfuls of coriander, finely chopped
- zest and juice of 1 lime
- salt and pepper
- 20g honey
- 10 ml soy sauce
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp of sesame seeds
- 1 tbsp sesame oil/ vegetable oil
- 1 handful of mint, finely chopped
- 1 handful of spinach, roughly chopped
- 1/2 red cabbage, shredded
- 1 carrot, peeled and finely sliced
- 1 spring onion, finely sliced
- 100g rice noodles
Method
- Using your hands mix together the pork, garlic, ginger, lime zest, red chili and one handful of the chopped coriander plus a pinch of salt and pepper. Mix this together until all of these ingredients are well combined and evenly distributed throughout the pork.
- Roll this mixture into medium sized balls, this recipe should make around 12, and leave in the fridge to firm up and marinate until you are ready to cook them.
- Stir together the honey, soy sauce and fish sauce until combined to create a glaze.
- Follow the given instructions for cooking the rice noodles. The noodles I use are boiled for 10- 12 minutes in salted water.
- Meanwhile heat up the oil in a frying pan and cook on a medium heat until lightly browned on the outside and cooked throughout.
- Whilst the meatballs and noodles are cooking you can create the salad. Stir together the leftover coriander, mint, spinach, red cabbage, spring onion and carrot and arrange on a bowl or plate.
- Once the meatballs are cooked take them off the heat and place them into a dish and stir in half of the glaze and the sesame seeds.
- Drain the rice noodles and toss them in the lime juice and then serve on the bowl with the meatballs.
- Drizzle the remaining glaze over and sprinkle over any remaining mint, coriander or chili if you wish.
I hope you enjoy this dish and I will share another one with you all soon!
This recipe sounds great too Rosie – I may have to buck up my cookery to keep up with you. Need to create a veggie version possibly – will try to get creative . Huge thanks!
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These look really good, and surprisingly simple to make!
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So cool. Will make tonight.
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Oh let me know how it goes! 🙂
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Will do! For simple tips on how to preserve food, be sure to check out a blog that I run called foodwasteaced (foodwasteaced.wordpress.com)! 🙂
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Just made the meatballs! It was a little bit difficult and had to go and buy a couple things, but they turned out REALLY GOOD! Everyone should try these recipes, and we will for sure be keeping up with your blog 😜 😎
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