Presto Pasta - Vietnamese Pork and Noodles

You guys. Oh, you guys. I had a big intro to this post planned, talking about the differences (for me) between big city and smaller city living. What I miss about Calgary, including certain restaurants and cuisines. About how I have gone from eating Vietnamese food once or more a week to having it only once (ONCE!) in the past year and a half. sob. How I haven't wanted to try making Vietnamese food at home cause I've been afraid of messing it up, but that I found a recipe I'd saved in my del.icio.us that sounded so good and easy I had to try it.

I was going to write all about that stuff, but then I had the first bite of my dinner and damn, my brain is fried mush with the deliciousness of it all.

Here's what I did to make a (in my opinion, and Scott's opinion too) mind blowing - yummy - pretty close to our favorite restaurant dish - Vietnamese Pork and Noodles.

First prepare your pork. The pork recipe comes from Waterlily at Group Recipes. I made a couple of small changes.

1 tablespoon molasses
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1 shallot, finely chopped (substitute 1/2 small mild onion, if necessary)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pound boneless pork loin, chopped fine (I pulsed mine in the food processor)

Whisk together the molasses, soy sauce, garlic, shallots and sugar. Mix into the pork and mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours, or overnight.

You'll also need -

rice noodles
lettuce
green onions
bean sprouts
spring roll sauce
hoisin sauce

When you're ready to cook, start by preparing your rice noodles according to the package directions. What I did for mine was to bring a pot of water to the boil, then add the noodles and cook and stir for 2 minutes. Then I removed them from the heat, covered, and let them sit until I was ready to plate.

When your noodles are sitting, form your pork mixture into small patties. Heat a large pan over medium heat with a bit of vegetable oil. Cook the patties, turning once or twice, until brown and cooked through.

While the patties are cooking, finely chop your green onions and shred your lettuce into long thing strands. When the patties are done, drain your noodles.

To plate, start by placing a handful or so of shredded lettuce in the bottom of each bowl. Then top with some noodles.

Place your pork patty on top, then scatter your chopped green onions and your bean sprouts. I took the final photo at this stage, because what I do next to my own dish isn't pretty.

The dish that is like this that I order in restaurants comes with sliced spring rolls on top and a side of dipping sauce. What I like to do is eat the spring rolls first, then pour the rest of the dipping sauce over the bowl and mix it all up. What I did here was to use my fork to chop the pork patty into pieces, then drizzle the dish with spring roll sauce and hoisin sauce, and mix it all together. Looks horrible, tastes divine. I had planned to make my own sauce, like this one, but we were late to start dinner so I used a bottled spring roll sauce instead.

This was GOOD. The pork makes enough to feed at least 4 people, and I just winged it on amounts for the rest of the ingredients. We were both surprised at how great this was and were a little piggy about how much we ate. But I'm sure the lettuce, onions and bean sprouts make up for that, right?

Since this dish is fully of noodle-y goodness, I'm sending it to Ruth for her Presto Pasta Nights. Ruth is hosting this week, so make sure you get your pasta posts to her by Friday.

(Original pork recipe here)