Rice Noodles With Spicy Pork and Herbs Recipe (2024)

I have been cooking from the NYT collection of food writers since 2003, almost half my life. This dish is in the pantheon of the top 2 or 3 most satisfying recipes I have ever cooked. The last time I posted a comment was when Mark Bittman penned his final Minimalist column. If he taught me how to cook, Tanis, Sifton, Moskin, Fabricant, and Clark guide me to greater sophistication today. But this dish takes it all and says, just find the ingredients, cook, and devour forever. Cheers to Tejal Rao.

Make double sauce. Sauce is delish. Add a portion to the pork. Pork is too plain with just garlic, ginger and scallions - add more sauce and some of the herbs to pork. Cooked pork in flatter le crueset and then broiled to make the bits crunchy. Then added poblano and red peppers cause could not find Yacai. Crunchy pork is much better! Add sauce to noodles and then to final product. Added cucumber and shredded carrots to radishes.

What is black vinegar?

Hi folks. Many of you may be familiar with cookbook author Nina Simonds -- she has written many excellent Asian cookbooks -- she recommends Worcestershire sauce as a substitute for Chinese black vinegar. They are almost indistinguishable! Enjoy!

To the OP, you can find black vinegar on Amazon. Your opinion that mint belongs in mint juleps is narrow minded. Why don't you let Vietnam and Thailand that their cultures have been doing it wrong all along?

Super solid dinner. Dressing was hot -- use sparingly at first. Important to really heap up on the herbs. Did half rice noodles, half zuke noodles, to lighten it up and worked well.

Chinkiang black vinegar is a fermented black rice vinegar from Fujian. It is fantastic. Similar to balsamic but not as syrupy. A pantry staple for anyone who enjoys Chinese cooking. Look for Gold Plum brand.

I found a few cooking websites that suggested balsamic vinegar as a reasonable substitute. I, for one, already have something like 10 different vinegars in my pantry and really don't want to buy another one!

Chinese vinegar from the southern part of China. Also known as Chinkiang Vinegar. Easy to find online (Google Chinese black vinegar). Smokey, woody, malty flavor -- hard to substitute for.

To get 1 TBSP Black Vinegar, use 1tsp each of rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar and water.

Easy, good, and refreshing on a hot day. I doubled the ground pork topping because that's what I had--and I'll do it again! Topped with basil and mint, and then served with the cilantro-heavy Tiger Vegetable Salad from this site. I didn't have the preserved vegetables but will pick some up for the next round.

Too many noodles, not enough vinegar dressing! I uses about 3/4 lb of rice noodles and doubled the vinegar dressing called for. I liked the black vinegar solution from Bon V...

Hi Paula, it is best to serve it hot and mix the noodles, herbs as soon as it is served. mixing the noodles with the meat sauce prevents the the noodles from sticking when they cool. Another family style variation option is to put the noodles is family pasta dish, add the meat sauce on top and 2/3 of the herbs, then toss. Add the 1/3 herbs as garnish on top of each serving.

Triple the pork recipe and double the sauce. The current recipe says to serve 'four' but it really serves two. Otherwise, it's delicious. Yacai is NOT optional; it adds a complex flavor that works to pull all the flavors together.

Seriously lacking in... everything. Not worth the effort. I added chilli oil and soya sauce to the just before finishing, but it was still quite bland and unimaginative.

Add chopped onion and red pepper to meat mixture. Top with pickled onions, carrots, radishes and herbs

Based on reviews, I made a couple modifications. I doubled the pork and sauce. I also seasoned the pork with salt and pepper and cooked it in chili oil instead of canola to give it more kick. Otherwise followed recipe including all herbs and yacai. It came together quickly and was very flavorful!

This is a good, easy dish! I read the comments and doubled the sauce, and am glad I did. I used ground chicken instead of ground pork, and chopped baby bok choi for veggies. I adapted the recipe for 2. For 4, there would be not enough meat. I appreciated learning about black vinegar substitution with balsamic and rice vinegars. Used sambal oelek because I did not have chili oil. Overall very tasty.

Black vinegar: 1-1-2, rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar, water

The proportions are way off - far too many noodles, not nearly enough vinegar/chili-oil dressing, needs more pork and herbs, the pork mixture needs more seasoning. Was this recipe actually tested by the NYT cooks? If cooked as written (as I did), it tastes like cold rice with a whiff of herbs, vinegar and pork. Blander than white bread.

Made this several times. Definitely double the sauce. As a vegetarian, I used veggie crumbles instead of pork. Family liked this, especially because you can serve it buffet style where everyone can put on the amount of ingredients they like.

I took the advice of many of you and doubled the sauce mixture, and added half of it to the pork mixture while it browned. I used kimchi in place of the Sichuan veggies, and was forced to sub garlic chile sauce for the chile oil. I also subbed cuc slices for the radishes, and served the noodles warm bathed in the other half of the sauce. It was delicious!

HUGE family hit. We doubled the garlic and ginger, and the sauce, used 85% lean organic ground turkey and mixed half of the sauce in after browning, and half drizzled over the top after assembly. One of the best NYT Cooking recipes I've made.

i added cooked diced carrots, but left out the radishes as I did not have any on hand. The recipe seems to be able to handle some variations and still holds up very well.

This is a new favorite. I used the suggested replacements for black vinegar below. I suggest doubling the vinegar dressing because I liked having a lot of it. I made this as a vegatarian version using veggie "pork".

1 tsp salt is too much for 1/2 lb. pork.

Made this the other night for my family of four and we all LOVED it. I did substitute Worstershire for the black vinegar but b.v. is now on my shopping list because I am making this again this week! Yes, it was spicy, but it was also amazing and even my non-spicy 21-year-old slurped it up and said it was better than a very similar dish she had had in a local restaurant. Definitely add some of the dressing to the pork in the final cooking stage. It makes a difference. Craving it already.

I could not find black vinegar at two of my local grocery stores (and I live in major urban area). The grocery mgr at Whole Foods had never even heard of it. I'm all for trying new things but please, for uncommon ingredients, offer substitutions (or don't include in recipe at all). I'm a busy working mom and traveling to an Asian market to pick up just one item is not an option.