Photo: Viethavvh · CC BY-SA 4.0
Bun Dau Mam Tom (Rice Noodles and Fried Tofu with Shrimp Paste Dip)
A Hanoi spread: pressed rice-noodle cakes, just-fried tofu, boiled pork and fresh herbs, all dipped into mắm tôm, fermented shrimp paste. The mắm tôm is never cooked. The same kind of paste that other dishes toast or fry to drive off its sharp smell is served raw here, beaten with lime juice and sugar until it foams.
Ingredients
- thin rice vermicelli (bún) · dry weight; if you buy pressed bún lá, skip the cooking400 g
- firm tofu600 g
- pork shoulder or belly, skin on400 g
- oil for frying500 ml
- salt · for the pork water1 tsp
- Mắm tôm dip
- mắm tôm (Vietnamese shrimp paste) · the runny purple-grey kind; Vietnamese grocers4 tbsp
- sugar2 tsp
- lime or kumquat juice2 tbsp
- red chilli · thinly sliced1
- hot oil from frying the tofu1 tbsp
- To serve
- perilla (tía tô)1 handful
- Vietnamese balm (kinh giới) · or mint1 handful
- Thai basil1 handful
- lettuce1 head
- cucumber1
Steps
- ⏲ 25 min
Put the pork into boiling salted water and simmer gently for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat, leave it in the water 10 minutes, then lift it out and slice thinly.
- ⏲ 30 min
Cook the vermicelli as the packet says, rinse in cold water and drain. While still warm, spread it a handful at a time on a tray and press it down so the strands stick into a cake. After 30 minutes, cut it into squares.
- ⏲ 5 min 30 sec
Cut the tofu into 3cm pieces and dry them thoroughly. Heat the oil to 180°C and fry for 5-6 minutes, until golden, puffed and crisp. Keep back 1 tablespoon of the hot oil.
- ⏲ 2 min 30 sec
Put the mắm tôm, sugar and lime juice in a bowl and beat hard with chopsticks for 2-3 minutes, until it goes noticeably paler and foams. Add the chilli, pour the spoonful of hot oil over the top and stir once.
- ⏲ 1 min
Lay out the noodle cakes, tofu, pork, herbs and cucumber on a tray and give everyone a small bowl of the dip. Serve the tofu straight from the oil.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- With nem rán (bún nem rán): fried spring rolls on the same tray. That is what else is on the plate in the photograph.
- With chả cốm: pork patties coated in Hanoi's green young rice (cốm) and pan-fried. Autumn is their season.
- With nem chua and blood sausage: a fuller tray adds fermented pork (nem chua) or Vietnamese blood sausage.
- Fish sauce instead of mắm tôm: for anyone who does not want the shrimp paste, a separate bowl of fish sauce with lime, sugar and chilli. It takes half the name away.
Tips
- The shrimp paste is never cooked. Laksa wraps its belacan in foil, toasts it and says why: "Used raw, that ammoniac edge stays in the broth." In nasi goreng, "The terasi never gets the stage that fermented shrimp paste usually gets." — it skips the toasting but still spends a couple of minutes in a hot wok. Bún đậu mắm tôm does not even do that. The mắm tôm goes to the table raw, and its smell is not something to get rid of: it is how this spread is seasoned.
- Acid and sugar do the work heat does elsewhere. The sharp smell laksa calls ammoniac sits on the alkaline side. Lime juice does not drive it off; it holds it in the bowl. Sugar does the job what sugar does describes with laksa's shrimp paste among its examples: "leave the sugar out of any of them and each strong element steps forward on its own."
- The foam is the sign it is ready. Mắm tôm is runny, but dark sediment settles at the bottom. Beaten hard until it goes paler and foams, the sugar has dissolved and the lime is worked through. Dark at the bottom still means not beaten enough.
- The spoonful of hot oil is the only heat it gets. Pouring over oil from the tofu pan warms the surface and adds a toasty note; it does not cook the paste. Stirred in, it cools at once.
- The same kind of paste gets cooked all the way through elsewhere. Har cheong gai mixes it into the batter and toasts it in the frying oil. That one takes the edge off with heat; this one holds it down with acid.
- Tofu straight from the oil. A hot crisp outside over a soft middle is the contrast on this tray, and beside cool noodles and cold herbs that temperature is part of the taste. Fried ahead, the crust goes soft and the dip just tastes salty.
The basics behind this dish
- Dough and Gluten: When to Build It and When to Avoid ItThe same flour and water becomes a dumpling wrapper or a tender pancake. The difference is whether you built gluten or avoided it — and kneading and resting do different jobs.
- Why Sauces Split: Emulsions and Pan SaucesA cream sauce breaking and a carbonara scrambling are the same failure. Temperature and emulsifiers — plus how to bring a split sauce back.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
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