Banh Mi Sandwiches

We recently had a working bee at our house to remove our old carpet and lay laminate floating floor boards. It was a massive job and it still needs a few finishing touches, it has ended up being a little bit stressful and needless to say I've sworn off DIY. I'm more suited to feeding the masses while they do they grunt work!

So, wanting to make something relatively easy to eat but delicious and a little bit better then standard bread rolls, I decided I'd give Banh Mi sandwiches a try. They're Vietnamese subs, usually filled with cold cuts (such as pork meat), pate, pickled vegetables, coriander, cucumber and mayonnaise. I used slow-cooked pork belly, pickled carrot and radish, shredded cucumber and lettuce with coriander and sriracha aioli.

You will need to prepare the pork two days in advance, as you need to marinate it overnight and cook it the day before so it has time to be pressed and left in the fridge overnight to set so you can easily slice it and fry it to give it a golden-brown crisp texture.

The carrot and radish pickle can be done the day before.

You will need... Serves 6
For the pork
1.3kg boned pork belly, skin on and scored.
2.5 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1 clove garlic, crushed
small knob of ginger, crushed
1 spring onion, sliced
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon juice
vegetable oil

For the Pickle
1 large carrot, peeled
1 medium daikon radish or 4 red radishes, washed
1/4 cup of sugar
1 Tbs course salt
1 cup water
1/2 cup ricewine vinegar
1 small knob ginger, peeled
1 red chilli, deseeded

For the Rolls
2 long baguettes, cut into 3 lengths each
1/2 cup aioli mixed with 1 Tbs sriracha (Korean Chili Sauce)
1/2 bunch washed coriander, roughly chopped
shredded iceberg lettuce
thinly sliced (julienne/matchsticks if you can) cucumber

Method...
1. Two days before, prepare the pork by rubbing the meaty side with the chinese five-spice. Rub the skin with the salt & lemon juice. Place skin-side up in a tray and in the fridge, uncovered overnight (leaving it uncovered will help the skin dry out and make it crisp when cooked).

2. The day before, preheat oven to the highest setting and remove the pork from the fridge. Rub the underside with the soy, garlic, ginger and rub the oil all over the pork. Place skin-side up on a rack over a roasting tray into the oven for 10 minutes. Turn down the heat to 180 degrees celsius (or 160 fan-forced), leave to cook for 1 and a half hours.

3. While the pork is cooking prepare the pickle by finely slicing the carrot (if you have a V-slicer use this on the finest setting to make thin matchstick-like pieces). Do the same with the radish, and then the chili and ginger.
4. Place vegetables in a bowl, and add the sugar and salt. Work with your hands and mix the vegetables with the seasonings until the sugar and salt have dissolved and the vegetables have slightly softened.

Pour over the vinegar and water. Pack vegetables into a quart-sized mason jar and pour the liquid over to cover. Leave in the fridge overnight (can be used up to a week).

(I doubled the recipe)

5. Once the pork has cooked for an hour and a half, check the skin is starting to crisp. If not, turn the oven up to 200 degrees celsius and cook for anther 20 minutes. Remove and rest on a tray, with another tray on top of it and some weights over the top (use tins of food if you like) evenly distributed to press the pork into an even thickness for one hour. Place in the fridge.
6. The day of, remove the pork from the fridge and use a sharp knife to cut into 1cm slices. Prepare the other fillings for your baguettes and remove the pickled vegetables from the liquid to drain. Preheat oven to 80-100 degrees celsius
7. Heat a frypan on medium-high, with a little bit of oil. Fry the pork belly slices until golden brown and then turn and do the same with the opposite side. Transfer to a tray and keep warm in the oven while you continue to fry the remaining batches of pork belly.
8. Layer up the ingredients in your preferred order. Serve.