Lemongrass sesame pork with fast-pickled cucumber

This recipe is by Nathan Houpapa, the executive chef of Cafe Hanoi, an award-winning Vietnamese restaurant in Auckland's CBD.

See more of his BBQ recipes here

• Grilled fish with chilli & galangal marinade
• Grilled eggplant skewers with fresh herbs & nuoc cham sauce

For this recipe, serve the pork skewers with the cucumber and some lettuce leaves to wrap the meat in. Goes great with Sriracha hot sauce.

Pork skewers

1 kg	Pork loin, (or pork belly) (Main)
½ cup	White sugar
¼ cup	Water
3 Tbsp	Fish sauce
3 Tbsp	Lemongrass, finely chopped (Main)
2 Tbsp	White sesame seeds (Main)
2 tsp	Ground pepper

Fast-pickled cucumber

3	Lebanese cucumber (Main)
250 ml	Water, warm
125 ml	Rice vinegar
60 g	Sugar
1 tsp	Salt
1 Tbsp	Red chilli, finely chopped (or you can use dried chilli flakes) (Main)

Directions

Pork skewers

1. Soak a packet of bamboo skewers in water for at least an hour (so they don't burn on the BBQ).
2. Make the marinade: Heat the sugar in a small saucepan over high heat. Swirl the pan as it heats up and starts to melt to dissolve all the sugar. Once the sugar is a dark amber caramel, carefully add the water to stop the cooking process. Add the fish sauce, lemongrass, cracked pepper and sesame seeds and leave to cool.
3. Slice the pork across the grain into thin slices. Marinate for at least 30 mins (2 hours is preferable), then thread the pork onto bamboo skewers and grill over a hot BBQ until done. These will cook quickly, so shouldn't need more than a couple of minutes per side.

Fast-pickled cucumber

1. Make the pickling liquor: Dissolve the sugar and salt in the warm water then add rice vinegar and chilli.
2. Use a peeler to peel the cucumber into ribbons. Soak in the pickling liquor for five minutes.