Lemongrass Pork Patties
How do you learn about a culture? Travel to the region and wander around indulging in street food.
Street-vendor food in Mexico like the carne asada tacos in Hermosillo and churros in Tepic shaped some of my greatest food memories ever and have influenced my food choices my whole life. Street food is always what people miss about their home countries, and after tasting these lemongrass wonders I would almost make the monumental effort to overcome my fear of flying over an ocean to experience real Vietnamese street food, and in particular these pork patties.
Lemongrass with ginger and a dash of sugar, there is something magical about this combination. Fish sauce and garlic help boost the flavor in these patties, so the result is a total num-of-a-burger you can eat as a wrap with lettuce leaves, on rice noodles, or make a slider with southeast Asian condiments like chili-garlic paste or the dipping sauce Nuoc Cham made with chiles, garlic, lime, sugar, fish sauce and green onion.
My friend Barb with Canoe Creek Produce used to grow lemongrass and sell it at Farmer’s Market. It’s been a few years since she grew it but she did plant the seed of interest that I could grow it myself. This fresh stalk is from our local co-op, but next year I just may give this a try. You can freeze or dry the stalks for later use—it isn’t the same as fresh but it does preserve quite a bit of flavor. And there is nothing like real lemongrass.
We’re still in grilling season—don’t let early and cool evenings scare you away!
Sounds like a good Equinox dinner to me.
Here is a site with phrases equivalent to Bon Appetit in many languages, click on the for audio pronunciation.
Lemongrass Pork Patties
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Mix together in a bowl:
1 pound ground Pork
1 stalk Lemongrass, minced
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 thumb-sized piece of Ginger, peeled and minced or grated
1 1/2 teaspoons Sriracha or Chile Garlic Paste
1 1/2 teaspoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Fish Sauce
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
Form into patties and grill, pan-fry or bake.
Serve on Lettuce Leaves with Cilantro and Sauce
or with Rice Noodles, Green Onions, Carrots, Cilantro and Nuoc Cham Sauce.
Ruth, Mexican and Vietnamese foods are more appealing than heavy Dutch, Belgian,a nd German foods. I enjoyed Geneva a great deal but have reservations about the overloaded food since then although it has been easy to get gluten-free everywhere. The real purpose of ths Rhine Riber tour seems to be to sample wines! I assumed castles were #1 and we finally saw many today on the middle Rhine. Viniculture has obviously taken center stage for centuries.