Bún đậu mắm tôm

This dish is typical of northern Vietnam. It is a cold platter of cooked rice vermicelli, fried tofu, cha com, assorted meats, cucumber and fresh leaf vegetables like perilla. The fermented shrimp dipping sauce is essential. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I had it in the evening in a small Hà Nội restaurant alongside a cold beer. I’m sure it was not the best Bún đậu mắm tôm in Hà Nội but sometimes you’re just hungry and have to walk into the nearest restaurant.

How to make the dipping sauce. Mix the following ingredients:

2 tbsp fermented shrimp paste.
2 tbsp sugar.
2 tbsp lime juice.
1 tbsp chili, sliced.
2 tbsp hot oil.
Optional: MSG, king of flavour.

Vermicelli & tofu
After cooking the rice vermicelli and cooling, they will be a sticky mess. For this dish you simply cut the vermicelli in bite sized chunks. The tofu is fried in the same bite sized pieces.

Meat
The meat can be pork leg or pork belly. Cook the pork as one big piece with some salt and when done, cool it in ice water. Cut into bite sized slices.
You can also add sliced Vietnamese pork sausage, but this will be hard to find outside Vietnam.

Cha com
To make these green sticky rice patties is more time consuming. You need young green rice, which is the first problem. I’ve never seen green com in The Netherlands so I have to skip this. The ingredients of cha com are:

• 50 g pork minced
• 100 g pork paste
• 50 g green sticky rice
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 egg beaten
• 2/3 tbsp stock powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp garlic minced

Above the shrimp paste for the dipping sauce. In the background my Thai catapult for killing small birds.