Banh Mi Meatball

Diagnosed with celiac in 2008, I've been thinking a lot lately of the foods I miss the most. And, having been snowed in for six days straight, I'm having hallucinations involving grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and other delicious cold-weather comfort foods I'll never be able to eat again.

One food in particular I really miss is a Vietnamese sandwich called Banh Mi. I'd only had maybe 5 or 6 of them in my life before gluten -- and thus a banh mi's crusty, lovely baguette -- was no longer my friend, so it's a nostalgia tinged with a lot of regret that I hadn't eaten more of them when I still could.

I've always been terrible at cooking any kind of Asian food here at home. It's just not something I do well, so I leave it to the experts and eat it in their restaurants or get carryout to bring home. But more and more, I've been thinking about and craving banh mi, and wanting to find a way to bring the flavors together in a way that I can enjoy them. So, what better way, I figured, than in a meatball?!

Something warm and porky and toasty and fragrant with crunchy Do Chua (pickled daikon radish and carrot) and cool cucumber. All in one little bite. Sign me the hell up.




1 lb. ground pork (from Smith Meadows Farm)
20 g mayonnaise (a heaping tablespoon)
1 medium egg
40g bread crumbs; I used gluten-free white sandwich bread to make mine (about 1C)
2 Thai chili peppers (seeded, minced)
15 g soy sauce; I used gluten-free tamari sauce (2T)
2 g kosher salt (a two pinches)

Combine above ingredients, then mix in some diced or minced Do Chua. I made my Do Chua ahead of time (and, since I didn't have any daikon radish on hand, I used rutabaga but added fresh grated ginger to the brine to make it feel more radish-y). I chopped the Do Chua from matchsticks down to a small dice before mixing it in with the meat. I didn't measure how much I added -- it was probably 3/4C. A full cup would be fine, too.

Roll the mixture into small meatballs (mine were slightly larger than 1T, but not as large as a ping-pong ball; somewhere in between -- maybe the size of a walnut) between the palms of your hands -- you should have about 30 meatballs. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and store in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large saute pan, I heated 2 parts canola oil to one part sesame oil (just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan) and brought it to a shimmer. Not sure of the exact measurements here -- it was probably 4 glugs of canola and 2 glugs of sesame oil. I turned the burner on high to heat the oil and once it began to shimmer, I turned it down to about a 5 or 6 out of 10 on the dial when I put the meatballs in. I rolled the meatballs in a combination of white rice flour and tapioca flour prior to putting them in the pan. I browned them evenly in the hot oil, careful not to overcook or char them.

I removed them from the saute pan and placed them on a fresh parchment-lined baking sheet and put them in the oven for 10 minutes to warm through. When I opened the oven door, they were so fragrant and so amazing, I knew I was in for a treat.

I made cucumber ribbons by peeling a cucumber with a vegetable peeler, and wrapped one around each meatball, then topped it with some more finely diced Do Chua. Lovely little bite on a spoon. Really tasty and full of flavor. The texture was fantastic, and the balance of meat and do chua was really, really nice.

Ya know, I kinda winged it on these meatballs, and they ended up being pretty freakin' delicious. I'd love to figure out some kind of sauce that these could simmer in, and then be tossed with some rice noodles. But for now, I'm quite content to pop them in my mouth, one by one, and enjoy these amazing little bites of banh mi.