Vietnamese Noodles with Savoy Cabbage
Cabbages aren’t exactly the hottest item on the vegetable menu: they don’t have the slim elegance of a green bean or the curvy voluptuousness of an eggplant. From Sauerkraut to Asian cabbage-parcel soups, however, they do feature prominently in most world cuisines. (To achieve the latter, stuff a leaf, tie it off with chives, and simmer in the broth for about 20 minutes to make sure the bundles are cooked through. The stuffing can be any combination of minced veggies, aromatics, seasonings, and/or ground meat.)
While some cabbages are hearty — some might say “sturdy” or even “tough” — other types of cabbage are a bit more mild and lend themselves to a quick sautée. The Savoy cabbage I opted to use in this recipe was tender enough to be sliced into strips and cooked with the sauce. (It would have been a good candidate for stuffing, too.) That mildness and slight crunch made it the perfect match for the pungency of Vietnamese seasonings and the full-flavored, grass-fed pork.
Vietnamese Noodles with Savoy Cabbage
2 servings noodles (soba or brown rice noodles work particularly well with this dish, and as long as the soba noodles are 100% buckwheat — always read the ingredient label! — both are gluten-free options)
1 T. butter, ghee, or coconut oil
1 medium onion, diced
About 1″-long piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced (or 1 tsp. ground dried ginger)
3 cloves garlic, sliced into thin rounds
1/2 lb. ground pork, preferably from pastured pigs
About 5-6 leaves of Savoy cabbage, sliced
1 T. nuoc mam (fish sauce)
1 T. soy or tamari sauce
1 T. pomegranate molasses OR 1 T. tamarind paste (both have a tangy, sour, citrusy flavor that goes a little way towards mimicking the lemongrass flavor typically found in Asian dishes)
2 T. lime juice
1/4 cup loosely packed chopped fresh cilantro
Prepare noodles according to package directions.*
While they’re simmering, in a medium-sized pan, sautée onions and ginger in butter over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until onion is nearly translucent and both onion and ginger have softened. Turn down heat to medium-low, add garlic, and sautée for another 2 minutes, stirring often. Stir in pork and cabbage and raise heat back up to medium. (When you’re using grass-fed meats, they’ll cook more quickly at a lower temperature — if you rachet up the heat to scorching, you’ll dry out your dinner!)
Break up the pork, making sure that the aromatics and cabbage are evenly dispersed throughout the meat, and cook for another 3 minutes. Stir in fish sauce, soy sauce, and pomegranate/tamarind, standing back a little when you first add the sauces so that the quickly-rising steam won’t burn you. Stir well to combine and continue to simmer for another 3-4 minutes. If the liquid evaporates too quickly, add enough of the lime juice to deglaze the pan and keep just a little bit of simmering sauce at the bottom of it.
Just before you remove the pan from the heat, add the (rest of) the lime juice and the chopped cilantro to the pork mixture. Stir in well, let simmer for another 30 seconds, and remove the pan from the heat. (Citrus juices are very vulnerable to heat, so if you cook the juice for long, you’ll lose most of the flavor.)
Stir in cooked and drained noodles, putting the entire pot back on the stove briefly if the noodles need a bit of reheating. Serve steaming hot.
Enjoy!
* You may want to toss a bit of extra-virgin olive oil into the cooked and drained noodles while they stand so that they don’t stick together.
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Tags: cabbage, cilantro, fish sauce, gluten-free, lime, noodles, pomegranate, pork, vietnamese
