Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Lemongrass-Thit Nuong

While visiting Bryan in Chicago, as much as I enjoyed the heavy deep dish pizza and Italian food, I craved some good ol’ homecooked Asian meals. So Bryan cooked another great recipe from his mom while I napped for 3 hours (seems to be a recurring trend…)

Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Lemongrass-Thit Nuong

Ingredients for Pork
1.5 lb pork butt or shoulder, thinly sliced just under 1/4 inch or so (not too thin or lean as you do not want it to dry out when grilled. Ask your butcher to do this for you)
1/4 cup minced Lemongrass (xa bam). Many Asian markets will sell minced lemongrass in the freezer section.
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs ground pepper
2-3 cloves garlic, minced (use more according to taste)
2-3 shallots, minced.
3 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs thick soy sauce (not regular soy sauce–has molasses, making it thicker and adding great color. If not available, can use caramel sauce. Both can be found at Asian groceries)
3 tbs roasted sesame

Ingredients for Sides
rice vermicelli
basil, chopped
bean sprouts
cilantro, diced
cucumber, chopped
lettuce leaves, chopped

Ingredients for nuoc mam
warm water
fish sauce
sugar
white vinegar
limes (or lemon)
serrano/chile peppers (optional)

Directions
Combine and bake the pork until nice and brown and a bit charred. You can also sautee it until it is brown.

Cook rice vermicelli in boiling waater; combine ingredients for nuoc mam, and toss salad together.

Put pork on top of vermicelli, and add vegetables and nuoc mam on top