Vietnamese | Vietnamese Meatballs

Updated on January 31, 2017

I've been making a version of this dish since the '80s. Recently I found a slightly better recipe than the one I was using, I posted it here. I added the rice noodles and lettuce from my old recipe.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

MEATBALLS

1 pound lean ground beef

1/3 cup red onion, finely chopped

1/3 cup cilantro, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped (microplaned)

1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and finely chopped (microplaned)

1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce

1/2 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoon oil for frying

 

DIPPING SAUCE

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 tablespoons water

 

RICE NOODLES and LETTUCE

1/2 package rice noodles, cooked, and cooled

butter lettuce leaves

 

Method

Mix all ingredients for meatballs.

Put a little oil in your hands, and use a tablespoon scoop to make the meatballs.

In a deep pan over medium heat, add oil and the meatballs. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn the meatballs over, cover and cook for another 5 minutes or until the meatballs are browned.

Mix all the ingredients for the dipping sauce.

Let guests build their own lettuce wrap using lettuce leaf, meatballs, rice noodles and sauce.

 

(Ref. "Beef Meatballs (Vietnamese)" recipe, Pickled Plum blog.)