Vietnamese Pork Sandwiches

A couple of weekends ago, Matt found a recipe for a Vietnamese pork marinade that sounded awesome.  It called to roast the pork loin after you marinade it, but he decided to use our smoker in the back yard instead.  Then, remembering a lovely Mexico -One Plate at a Time episode wherein Bayless’ annoying daughter pickled some onions, we decided that pickled shallot and carrots would be an awesome crunchy topper – that and a few sprigs of Thai Basil and a squirt of Sriracha, of course.

Here is a loose recipe that we used – nothing was really measured – it’s kind of all to taste.  You can get most of these ingredients in the Asian food aisle of your supermarket, but we did have to go to an Asian market to find the sweet soy (which is heavenly might I add).

Vietnamese Pork Marinade*

Grind a few stalks of lemongrass in food processor.
Add an onion. (we used shallot)
When pulped add a good handful of garlic. (4 or 5 cloves)
Grind black pepper until your arm is sore. Twice. Add it.
Now a dash of fish sauce, coriander, sweet soy, brown sugar, Sriracha hot sauce or fresh chilis, sesame oil.

This paste needs a couple of days to work on the meat. Add some fresh lemon juice if you need it to work faster.  We marinated one large pork loin for a little over 24 hours.

We smoked the pork loin at 225 until it reached 160 degrees – this took our smoker about 4 hours.

Slice thin and serve on toasted ciabatta with pickled onions and carrots (we used carrots instead of jalapenos) and Thai basil, more sweet soy and Sriracha drizzle.  Oh wow.

Serves a lot.

*recipe found on Chowhound