Crispy Lemongrass Pork Over Rice with Pickled Radish and Vietnamese Balm
Do you respect Piggy? [Photo Credit: Alex Paternostro]
Recipe by Seth Paternostro
Introduction by Alex Paternostro
November 27, 2021
Piggy nudged his trotter at some hay in the dirt of his sty and decided to walk over to Bernice. He was in a thinking air and hence shook his big belly—jiggle, jiggle, jiggle—and shuffled over to where she was nursing her tots. He closed his eyes and sidled up, grunting politely until she noticed him and shooed her farrow away. She righted herself, and when the sow thought herself decent, she addressed her good friend.
“Oink.”
“Oink…
“So, Bernice, I’ve ballooned up in size recently, which is not entirely my own fault, but it’s gotten me to wondering about the world we live in.”
“O, are you on that old saw again? It’s the way of things, you know.”
“Yes, yes, but we’re smart animals. What we have inside us our masters sometimes take within themselves to save their lives or even mend broken hearts, and I just want it to be right. I mean, don’t you ever think about The Date?”
“We all do, but it’s just something we put into the back of our heads, hoping that the other side will be everything we’ve been raised to believe it to be.”
“That’s exactly my point! Humans go to Heaven (or Hell) or insist on some form of a beautiful afterlife, and we’ve been taught that we will bring happiness to those humans once we cross the great fence. However, I want to be special. I want to be not mere sustenance but a dish worthy of praise.”
“Ah, that’s nice. I have simpler dreams. I just want to be home-cured bacon, the kind that guests remember because of the care and consideration that goes into it. No salt-water mush with added colors for me, ho-ho.”
“But that is worthy of praise! Good bacon involves time and thought, and I feel that a lot of us these days just aren’t getting what we’re due. You’ve heard about Tubby Jim, right, that kindly cow who lived just down the way? You know what they did...to him?”
“Oh, don’t tell me about that! They slimmed him down to almost nothing. Fake taste, soy and syrup flavors—practically leather but for the mouth!”
“It was disgraceful, indeed, and it’s gotten me worried that our fate might be that way. His owner was all grass and corn until he got that offer, which makes me feel that we don’t really have a say in all this. The humans don’t even try to communicate, and they probably couldn’t learn to speak our tongue anyways. They just hear grunts and squeals and leave it at that.”
“So what do you want to do about it, Piggy? You’re in here with me just like the rest of us, and this is a nice farm, so why ask for more?”
“I think the answer for me is in faith, faith in us.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
“Well, I’ve been reading in Sanskrit of late, and I’ve come upon some ideas of the humans that I think we can learn from. We can transform them into something that will give our suffering meaning.”
“Umm. Go on?”
“Sure. My Sanskrit is a bit rusty, but I was turning the pages of the Buddhist poet Āryaśūra’s anthology of jātaka tales, and I chanced upon a story about the bodhisattva when he meets a Tigress who had recently given birth. In a mountain’s cavern, she gritted her teeth. Her stripes without lustre, her frame emptied, she was starving, and in such desperation, even her cute, cuddly, innocent cubs appeared to her like a potential meal that could save her. The bodhisattva saw this, sent his disciple Ajita away, and made an incredible decision. Acting out of pure compassion, he fed her his own body!”
“Oh my!”
“Yes. It is a surprising story, but is it not that different from what we do for the humans? Our bodies seem to them devoid of selves and carry a nagging history of impurity, so they consume us, worrying about proper temperatures to kill nonexistent worms. Are we rewarded after all this with merit for our sacrifices? I believe so, but only when they pay attention, see us as good creatures with worth besides that per pound. When they falsify our bodies in death, however, and harm themselves with poor feed while disgracing the lives we have given up for their tables, then I am wroth.”
“What conclusion do you then draw?”
“Respect. Respect. Respect the animals. Respect us, and the humans will better respect themselves...”
Serves 4
Total time
30 minutes
Equipment:
cutting boards (1 for meat and 1 for vegetables), cleaver or other heavy knife, measuring cups and spoons, cast iron skillet, spatula, tasting fork and spoon, mixing bowl
Tableware:
warm plates and utensils
Ingredients
1 lb skinless pork belly
2 shallots
1 stalk lemongrass
4 cloves garlic
½ tsp palm sugar
1 hot korean chile, or other spicy pepper
2 tsps fish sauce
2 limes
4 large eggs
Peanut oil, as needed
Vietnamese balm (kinh goi), for garnish
Black pepper, as needed
Kosher salt, as needed
6 cups cooked jasmine rice, for serving
Pickled Radish
1 small bunch radishes
½ cup cane vinegar
½ cup water
1 tbsp palm sugar, or as needed
½ tsp kosher salt, or as needed
Instructions
Set out all equipment, tableware, and ingredients. Prepare the jasmine rice so that it is ready for serving.
Trim, and thinly slice the radishes, then combine with the cane vinegar, water, palm sugar, and kosher salt in a mixing bowl.
Taste a small amount of the pickle brine, and adjust as desired.
Heat a cast iron skillet over medium.
Thinly slice the pork belly against the grain, then chop it from the other direction into very small pieces.
On a separate cutting board, peel the shallots and garlic. Mince the shallots, and thinly slice the garlic.
Remove the ends and outer layers of the lemongrass stalk until you reach the soft core. If it is too fibrous to chew through, then keep removing layers. Mince the lemongrass core.
De-stem, de-seed, and thinly slice the hot chile pepper.
Quarter the limes.
Roughly chop the Vietnamese balm.
Pour just enough peanut oil into the preheated pan to coat the bottom, sprinkle in a generous pinch of salt, then add the pork belly, spreading it out into about a single layer. Work in 2 batches if your skillet’s diameter is 10-inches or less.
Sprinkle over a pinch each of salt and black pepper, then cook without stirring the pork until most of its fat has rendered and the bottom is thoroughly golden brown.
Stir, breaking the pork up if it has cooked together, then add the shallots, lemongrass, palm sugar, and garlic.
Cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic is almost fully golden, then drop in the chile pepper, add the fish sauce, squeeze a quarter of lime over, and taste.
Adjust as desired, then turn off the heat.
Divide the jasmine rice among the serving plates, and scoop all of the pork on top, leaving behind the rendered fat.
Reheat the rendered fat over medium-high, adding more oil if necessary.
Crack in the eggs, sprinkle with salt, and baste with the fat until cooked as desired.
Place an egg on each plate, garnish with the pickled radish, chopped Vietnamese balm, and quartered limes, then eat.
NUTRITION FACTS:
Calories 561 Total Fat 21.7g (28%) Saturated Fat 7.7g (39%) Cholesterol 261mg (87%) Sodium 514mg (22%) Total Carbohydrate 63.3g (23%) Dietary Fiber 1.2g (4%) Total Sugars 1.7g Protein 30.8g Vitamin D 18mcg (88%) Calcium 69mg (5%) Iron 2mg (14%) Potassium 467mg (10%) - Note: Please read our Nutrition Disclaimer.
Seth Paternostro is a writer and recipe developer based in Chicago. He is a co-founder of Our American Cuisine and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with an A.B. in East Asian Studies. You can learn more about him here.
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