vietnamese pork (bun cha) pizza recipe

thoughts on representing vietnamese flavors on pizza and a recipe recreating a traditional vietnamese dish on pizza

Venturing into unknown territory has never been more fun.

If you’ve been following me, you know my passion is making Asian pizza and I’ve been testing quite a few of them through my pizza drops local to SF. My ethnic background on both sides of my family is Chinese, so it’s only natural that I’m most familiar with various flavor profiles from different regions in China. So when I wanted to do a Vietnamese themed pizza drop, I had never been more out of my element. But my mantra is: “You only get to discover anything for the first time.” Or so I tried to remind myself as I dove headfirst into what traditional Vietnamese cuisine looked like.

Photo courtesy of meetandeats.com

What’s a more “traditional” Vietnamese dish?

I was definitely familiar with the accessible Vietnamese food that was already in the United States. Pho, banh mi, goi cuon (spring rolls) were all part of the rotation of Vietnamese dishes that I frequented and that you’ve probably had before. I stumbled upon a dish called bún chả (grilled pork and noodles) that I hadn’t had before but seemed fairly traditional to northern Vietnam. It was a street food dish that combined my favorite elements (fish dipping sauce, meat, vegetables, and a starch) and presented them to the eater in a unique way — dip the noodles in the dipping broth to enjoy the dish to the fullest. In fact, you might’ve seen Anthony Bourdain and President Obama eat this dish together for Parts Unknown.

Image courtesy of Grub Street.

So how the heck do you make this a pizza?

Making food is about picturing something in your mind and then painting that picture with ingredients, temperature, and creativity. Okay, it’s not that poetic but it’s really just trial and error in my experience. In any dish, you need a good balance of elements. You want enough salt, acid, fat, and some heat (if you can handle it). You can also balance things out with sugar based on the flavors in the dish already. A pizza traditionally has fat (cheese), acidity (tomato sauce), and salt already. You just have to think about how to keep those elements intact and balanced but switch up the flavors.

I ended up creating a base sauce out of the dipping broth/sauce, using ground pork instead of meatballs so I could top the pizza more evenly, keeping the mozzarella since it’s a fairly neutral cheese that provides fat still, then pickled vegetables and cilantro as an after-bake garnish for the acidity.

• Dipping sauce / pork = salt and heat (and sugar)

• Mozz = fat

• Pickled vegetables = acid

If you follow these elements for pizza, or really for any dish, you’ll have something that’s fairly well balanced and that’s interesting to eat. If you notice yourself getting tired of eating something, it’s usually because there’s an element that’s consistently overwhelming or underwhelming. Try really noticing next time, it’ll make a difference!

Before I get into the recipe, here’s some BTS action shots of me experimenting with adapting this dish to pizza.

Sauce on the left is for the pizza base, sauce on the right is for the ground pork marinade.

Vietnamese pickled veggies. Recipe below!

Testing it first as a rice bowl. If it don’t rice bowl, it won’t pizza.

Ground pork, base sauce, and mozz. It smelled glorious.

First tester pizza. This one was actually really spicy.

vietnamese pork (bun cha) pizza

ingredients (makes about 8 pizzas):

pork and marinade:

• 4 lb ground pork (80/20 lean to fat)

• marinade:

  • 4 tbsp sugar

  • 8 tbsp minced shallot

  • 8 tbsp fish sauce

  • 4 tbsp minced garlic

  • 8 tbsp honey

  • black pepper to taste (2 tbsp~)

pizza sauce:

• 1/2 cup fish sauce

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 3 cups water

• 1 tbsp minced garlic

• 1 tbsp minced thai chili

• 4 tbsp corn starch slurry (to thicken)

  • 4 tbsp corn starch

  • 4 tbsp cold water

pickles:

• 2 medium carrots

• 1/2 large daikon

• 1.5 cups boiling water

• 1/2 cup white sugar

• 4 tsp salt

• 3/4 rice wine vinegar

general toppings:

• cilantro

cooking instructions:

1. mix all ingredients in marinade together and marinate meat in mixture for at least 30 minutes

2. make pizza sauce while meat is marinating, combine all ingredients besides corn starch slurry on medium-low heat

3. then add corn starch slurry and mix until a sauce-like texture

   1. add more corn starch slurry if it’s not thick enough yet, it should be similar to tomato pizza sauce texture

4. once sauce is done, start pan frying the marinated meat on medium-high

5. most of the liquid in the meat should be reduced, you can skim the excess liquid as well but make sure to keep some of the reduced liquid as that’ll have flavor as you’re topping the pizza

6. for the pickled vegetables, cut the carrots and daikon into long, thin, little strips

7. dissolve the salt and sugar in the boiling water and then stir in vinegar

8. put carrots and daikon in a mason jar and then put the pickling solution into the jar until vegetables are covered

9. pickle for at least 2 hours

pizza assembly instructions:

1. 3 tablespoons of pizza sauce or at least until base is covered

2. top with a light layer of marinated, cooked ground pork

3. cover with a layer of shredded mozzarella

4. bake pizza off (in home oven or pizza oven)

5. top pizza with pickled vegetables and cilantro

6. enjoy!

For a bonus item, here’s an ACTUAL bun cha dish I ate in Paris recently. It was absolutely divine, shoutout to Ngon Ngon in the 13th arrondissement.

As always, if you need a pizza dough recipe — check out this post. Stay tuned for part 2 and my second recipe from my latest pizza drop. Subscribe for more recipes and for updates on the next pizza drop, especially important if you’re local to SF :)

Much love <3

— Harry (Tableside Pizza)