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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Stir together the honey, soy sauce and fish sauce until combined to create a glaze.
4. Follow the given instructions for cooking the rice noodles. The noodles I use are boiled for 10- 12 minutes in salted water.
5. Meanwhile heat up the oil in a frying pan and cook on a medium heat until lightly browned on the outside and cooked throughout.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Drain the rice noodles and toss them in the lime juice and then serve on the bowl with the meatballs.
9.  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!