Pork Banh Mi Sandwich

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you may have noticed a few things. One, I have food hang ups. Two, I ramble way too much. And three, I tend to get stuck on certain combinations or food types. The Banh Mi is my new obsession. If you meet me in real life, I apologize in advance that I will probably tell you about it and insist that you get one or make one.

When doing research on these sandwiches, I found that most of the recipes called for fish sauce. Anyone care to guess what my opinion of a sauce that is made of fermented fish guts is? Right. And I know that I probably eat it all the time in various restaurant dishes, but I don't need to know, okay? So I improvised. Here is what I came up with:

Banh Mi Sandwich
Recipe by Michelle's Dinner Bell

For the Meat Filling
1 lb pork tenderloin, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs hosin sauce
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (seed or don't seed depending on how spicy you want your marinade)
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tbs sesame seeds
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Place these ingredients in a Ziploc bag and marinate for 3-4 hours.  In a hot skillet, cook the pork over medium high heat 4-5 minutes until done.  Set aside.


Carrot & Daikon Slaw
1 cup carrots, julienned
1 cup daikon radish, julienned
1-2 tbs mirin
1-2 tbs rice wine


For the Sandwiches
French baguette
3-4 jalapenos, sliced and seeds removed
1 cucumber sliced into long thin planks
Cilantro sprigs
Mayonnaise if you must

I served mine with sriracha and sweet chili oil - both available in the Asian food section of your grocery store. What is sriacha you ask?  It is a spicy chili and garlic sauce with a rooster on the bottle. See how helpful I am today? The better question may be what is a daikon radish.  I found mine on a two hour, 5 store odyssey because I didn't want to drive ten miles to the Asian market in the next town.  Brilliant!  Anyway, THIS is a daikon because looking for something you have no idea what it looks like is difficult.

And don't let the picture fool you.  They are big.  Like the size of my leg.  Okay, my leg once I finally lose some weight and start working out....