Name: Cao lau noodles
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients: salt and black pepper; ½ tsp ground star anise; 1 stick lemongrass, trimmed and finely chopped; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; 4 wide strips dried rice noodles, deep-fried until crisp and crumbled, or pork scratchings; 350 g boneless and skinless pork loin; groundnut oil; 100 ml soy sauce; 200 g round rice noodles (bun) or other noodles; 1 tbsp fish sauce; 2 tsp caster sugar; 4 handfuls aromatic herbs (mint, basil, coriander, chopped garlic chives); 3 handfuls beansprouts; 1 birdseye chilli, finely sliced

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Food and Travels

By Alastair Hendy

Published 2004

About

Noodles with soy-simmered pork and herbs are the star in Hoi An’s culinary crown. A gorgeous thing, found nowhere else but in this antique town. The noodles are made from rice that has been soaked with ash in calcium-rich water, which makes them extra elastic. The croutons that top the lot evolved from thrift, as once they were made from the left-over gunk from peanut oil production, but are now made from left-over rice noodles - pork scratchings work well too. Thrift has a ton of good thin