Cao lầu

Name: Cao lầu
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients: 500 g Thick fresh cao lầu or udon noodles; 600 g Pork shoulder, in one piece; 2 tsp Five-spice powder; 3 tbsp Dark soy sauce; 3 tbsp Fish sauce; 2 tbsp Palm sugar; 6 Garlic cloves, minced; 3 Shallots, sliced; 700 ml Water; 8 Rice paper or wonton wrappers, cut in squares and fried; 150 g Bean sprouts; 2 handfuls Thai basil, mint and perilla; 4 leaves Lettuce, shredded; 1 Lime

Thick chewy noodles barely wet with a dark pork broth, under slices of five-spice pork, crisp noodle squares and a fistful of herbs — a dish Hội An claims so completely that locals say it cannot be made anywhere else.

Nguồn

Công thức của Quảng Nam and Hội An kitchens · 🏺 Truyền thống · Central-coast cooking either side of Hội An — turmeric rather than chilli, noodles barely wet with broth, and dishes a town claims as its own rather than the country’s

Hội An · a town's own dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms it as a regional Vietnamese noodle dish from the city of Hội An in Da Nang, typically consisting of pork and greens. Quantities, the reduce-hard instruction and the udon substitution are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Helen's Recipes (Vietnamese Food)Hoi An Garden Palace Art Culinary Culture

⏱ 150 phút🍽 4 khẩu phần🔥 560 kcal🇻🇳 Việt Nam🌶️

Không sữaKhông hạt

Các bước

Rub the pork with the five-spice, half the fish sauce and half the soy. Leave 30 minutes.
Brown the pork on all sides in a heavy pot, then add the garlic, shallots, sugar, the rest of the sauces and the water.
Cover and simmer 90 minutes, turning once, until a skewer slides in.
Lift the pork out and reduce the liquid hard until you have about 250 ml of dark, glossy broth.
💡 Reduce it further than feels right. Cao lầu is not a soup — the noodles should be coated and barely wet, with a shallow pool at the bottom of the bowl, not swimming.
Slice the pork thin. Warm the noodles through in boiling water for 30 seconds and drain well.
Build each bowl: lettuce and sprouts, then noodles, pork, two ladles of the reduced broth, herbs, fried squares and a wedge of lime.

💡 Mẹo

Hội An sells this everywhere and nowhere else does — the town treats the well water as part of the recipe, which is unusual and probably half true.
The crisp squares are usually offcuts of the same noodle dough, deep-fried. Fried wonton skins do the same job.
It is eaten mixed. Turn everything over from the bottom before the first mouthful.