Grilled Pork Sandwiches with Radishes, Carrots and Chiles

We were gifted a copy of Alice Water's "The Art of Simple Food II" by my sister-in-law for Christmas this year.  Our nephew works at the restaurant and they thought it'd be a great addition to our library.  Boy were they right.

The first recipe we tried was a real keeper and I'm going to share it here today.  Sorry, no pictures on this one as I hadn't intended to do so.

There are three major parts to this delicious banh mi sandwich - the meat, the pickled vegetables, and the aioli:

Meat:

Ingredients

• 1 pound pork shoulder sliced as thin as you possibly can get it.  (Seriously - thinner than you think possible, shaved is probably the best if you can keep the pieces large)  (Alice suggests sliced chicken thighs or breasts as an alternative - haven't tried it)
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce - we used Red Boat fish sauce from Vietnam, a first pressing fish oil that costs about 3X the cheaper oils but well worth it
• 1 small lemongrass stalk, chopped.  Fresher is better - try the farmers market at Stonestown Mall on Sundays for some really good organic lemongrass (we got ours at Rainbow grocery and it was a little old).  We sliced thin (1/16th inch or smaller) and then chopped to get the smallest pieces possible. 
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed.  OK, I love garlic so I doubled this - but this is what the recipe calls for.
• 2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar (or 1/2 tablespoon each honey and brown sugar) - we found palm flower sugar at Rainbow, however it's apparently not the same as palm sugar which is made from the sale of the palm tree.
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil - we only have the really dark roasted sesame oil so I don't know if the lighter type is as good in this or not
• 1 teaspoon salt

Procedures

• In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients (except the pork) in a bowl until everything is dissolved.  I was tempted to use the Vitamix, but decided not to as is would shred the garlic cloves.
• Stir the pork into the marinade - you'll need to stir a lot as there's not a lot of marinade to go around.  
• Get a good marinading container (glass - not plastic, or if plastic please be sure it's BPA free - we use the Pyrex storage containers) and put the marinading pork into the container - make sure to press it down to get as flu a coverage as you can.
• Seal the container and put in the refrigerator.  The recipe says for a few hours or overnight - we did it for a day.  Be sure to stir the marinading pork a few times and press flat in the container while it's marinating to get everything fully spiced up.
• When ready to cook, grill the meat.  Alice calls for over medium hot coals until crispy, about 4 minutes a side.  We used a Cuisineart panini press at 350 degrees on both sides and grilled for about 8-10 minutes until crisp.  The meat was still tender inside, which tells me it should have been sliced thinner - if you use a hibachi or similar grill you'll probably have different results.

Pickles

Ingredients

• 1 carrot ( we used three as the daikon was a little large and we wanted equal amounts)
• 1/2 daikon
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt

Procedures

• Julien the carrots and daikon.  Since they're going into a sandwich you want them fairly fine - say about  1/8th inch square, and 3-4 inches long at the most.   I sized mine to fit flat (rather than upright) into a quart mason jar (made a triple recipe to fill it - I love pickled daikon) so about 2 1/2 inches long)  
• Layer the sliced carrot and daikon in the jar, alternating layers of carrot and daikon (no real reason other than to make an aesthetically pleasing jar of pickles) and set aside
• Mix the remaining ingredients together.  Alice doesn't have you boil them, but I boiled the ingredients together to make sure the sugar and salt fully dissolved, and to sanitize the julienned vegetables in the jar
• Pour the boiling pickling solution into the jar - make sure to completely cover all the julienned vegetables.
• Let cool and refrigerate - Alice calls for at least two hours - I did a full day before using.
• Drain thoroughly before using - I put the pickles I wanted for the sandwiches in a colander for 5 minutes in the sink to get most the moisture off of them.

Aioli

Ingredients

• 1 egg yolk (pasture raised of course - the eggs are so much tastier and better for you)
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon water
• 1/2 cup light olive or canola oil (Alice calls for vegetable, but canola is really the only one that's close to healthy to eat - stay away from corn oils (GMOs) and grape seed etc (including really good, flavorful olive oils) are too heavy flavored and overpower the aioli)

Procedures

• Do not use a blender - my experience is that the blender whips too fast and the resulting mayonnaise is thin as a result
• In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, water and fish oil, ensuring you thoroughly is the ingredients together.
• Slowly drizzle the olive oil in - a bit at a time, and whisk until combined.  As the oil is absorbed into the yolk mixture, the sauce will thicken, lighten in color and become opaque.  Make sure it thickens before adding additional oil - at first you'll need to whisk quite a bit, but as you add additional oil it will take less whisking.  If at the end it's too thick (not sure what that means as mine have never been too thick) they say you can whisk in a few drops of water to thin it out.

Final Assembly

Additional Ingredients

• 1 sweet baguette (don't use sourdough as it will overpower the other flavors)
• Fresh cilantro sprigs
• Slices of jalapeño

Procedures

• Cut the baguette into sandwich length pieces.  Slice each piece lengthwise almost all the way through - you want to leave enough that there will be a hinge holding the faces together.  Butter the faces and grill them until crisp and browned.  (Alice calls for pulling a bit of the bread out to make room and then toasting them - I like mine grilled better, plus it let's me use my panini press!)
• Spread some aioli on both faces of the toasted bread.
• Layer with the grilled pork
• Cover with a generous amount of pickles
• Garnish (to me that means cover completely) with fresh cilantro and jalapeño slices
• Fold together and enjoy while still hot

Notes

1. The pork is fine cold - left overs are great.
2. Serrano peppers work as well - if you like a little more heat
3. I'd recommend adding a 1/4 teaspoon of red chile pepper flakes to the pickling sauce if you like it spicy.
4. We used fried onions on ours as well -  our favorite bahn mi places use crunchy fried onions in their sandwiches.  They're really simple to make - use either shallots or leeks sliced really really thin (1/16th of an inch or better).  Heat a pan with about 1/4 inch of a light, high heat oil (canola works great) with a low heat, and then fry the onions until brown and crispy.  If they turn black you've gone too far.  It takes a bit of time to do this - don't get distracted as you'll wind up with charred onions that are great as worm feed in your compost bin.