Porkin' Out on Vietnamese

At the end of April, Tom and I took a Vietnamese cooking class through Cookbook Co. Cooks. Tom and I love Vietnamese. We eat Vietnamese so often that I am only one step away from being on a first-name-basis with the staff at our local Vietnamese joint. In fact, if I had provided the staff with my name, I'm sure they would be using it.

The cooking class was run by a half Chinese, half Vietnamese woman, and her Vietnamese mother. They offered a variety of recipes, including Vietnamese crepes, sweet potato shrimp fritters, deep fried bananas, and our personal favorite, grilled pork meatballs on vermicelli noodles.

On Sunday night we had friends over for dinner, and impressed them with our Vietnamese prowess.

I firmly believe that the key to our dish is all in the dipping sauce. The dipping sauce is a concoction of water, sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, rice vinegar, garlic and red chilies. Tom and I like to add matchstick carrots. The take on a delicious spicy pickled flavour! The longer you leave the dipping sauce, the more infused the flavours become. It is tangy, spicy and savoury, all wrapped into one tantalizing liquid.

Dipping sauce.

Next, we roll up some meatballs, which are formed in golf ball sized spheres. The meatballs are made of pork, onion, green onion, a liberal amount of lemongrass and some dark soy sauce. In the cooking class, grilled the meatballs on the stove top, but we prefer to grill them on the BBQ.

Uncooked meatballs.

Tom covertly sneaking a meatball sample.

Then we boil up a large serving of vermicelli noodles. We followed the course instructor's advice and bought the "Gold Swallow" brand from the Lucky Supermarket. The noodles hold up very well when cooking, and have a chewy texture.

Bowl full-o'-noodles.

I made this ever-so-pleasing arrangement of fresh veggies, including matchstick carrots, chopped iceberg lettuce, bean sprouts, cilantro and cucumber. On the side is a helping of dipping sauce.

Dinner veggies.

And finally, once you take the meatballs of the BBQ, you immerse them all in the bowl of dipping sauce. The flavours are absolutely out of this world!

Finished meatballs.

To eat as a meal, you pile noodles, veggies and meatballs into your bowl, and dollop on a little dipping sauce. I guarantee, it will be one of the most delicious homemade meals you've ever had!

This weekend, Tom insisted on using four pounds of pork in the meatballs. So.. We have quite a few leftovers for many delicious meals to come.

Yum!