Vietnamese street food - Shrimp paste with tofu and rice vermicelli

Hello Steemit friends! I´m back with another Vietnamese street food recipe which I talked about in my previous post! This time I show you how to make the dish called `Bun mam tom´ from Hanoi - it consists of noodles with tofu, pork belly and shrimp paste. It is one of the most popular street food in Vietnam, because of its simplicity, yet really extreme flavor! The shrimp paste is fermented ground shrimp and sun dried. It  is subjective to each person, some finds it pungent (like stinky durian) and others find it savory sweet. I would recommend you to give this dish a try! Let´s get started!

Ingredients

• 1 kg rice vermicelli
• 400g block fresh firm tofu
• 300 k pork belly (thinly sliced)
• fishballs (optional)
• cucumber
• mint leaves
• lettuce
• coriander

For the sauce (Mix these ingredients together)

• 3 tbsp fermented shrimp paste (asian grocery store)
• 2 tbsp suger
• 1 lime
• 1 birds eye chili

TOFU

Cut the tofu into large cubes. When the oil is heated to at least 350 degrees, carefully add the tofu pieces (and the fishballs) into the wok. Fry, stirring occasionally, until it is golden brown on both sides, crispy on the outside and yet still soft on the inside. Put the finish tofu pieces on paper towels, so it gets rid of most of the oil.

RICE VERMICELLI

Put 1 tbsp of vinegar (to keep the noddles white) into a pan with boiling water (highest level), add the noodles (turn down the level) and leave it for 5 minutes. Rinse the noodles well in cold water so they don´t stick together.

PORK BELLY

Put the pork belly into the pan with already boiling water and cover it with the lid (for 5 min on highest level, leave it for 15-20 ore minutes on lowest level until it cooked through. Let it cool down and slice thinly.

It´s done! 

To serve, cut deep-fried tofu into bite-sized pieces. Grab a bit of everything and dip in the sauce. Enjoy it!

                                                                               

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