I was going to bring a Broadway pea salad to a birthday happy hour celebration, but then the hostess suggested I put it into lettuce cups and so I decided to just scrap that pea salad plan and make this: Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups. I went to an Asian market and bought lemongrass like the recipe called for, but I had never worked with this ingredient. I decided to take a hammer to the last five inches of it before mincing.
I got a lot of aggression out and found the last five inches of lemongrass toward the bulb very easy to mince with my chef's knife:)
I then put about 2 tablespoons of that minced lemongrass into a bowl with 2 pounds of ground pork along with 2 tablespoons of minced shallot, 4 stalks of scallions sliced, 4 tablespoons of fish sauce, 4 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, 4 large cloves of minced garlic, and a 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper because I didn't have any white pepper.
I then took my mini scoop and plopped them onto my lighted barbecue grill full of 20 lit briquets.
These are my Vietnamese pork balls after 10 minutes after which I turned them over to brown on the other side.
Here are my Vietnamese pork balls after 20 minutes of grilling in the rain.
While my pork balls were grilling, I grated half of a large carrot and mandolin sliced 4 Persian cucumbers into a bowl of 4 tablespoons of lime juice, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon minced lemongrass and chopped Serrano and Fresno chile pepper.
I also rinsed and spun a head of butter lettuce and placed the leaves into a bowl.
Lastly I used tongs to place the meatballs into a serving bowl and poped into a 200 degree oven to keep warm for serving a half hour later at the party while I showered and got ready for a birthday celebration. My appetizers were well received, and I had leftoverer meatballs and cucumber salad which will be terrific atop a bowl of rice vermicelli along with sprinkles of chopped mint and cilantro for a homemade lunch.
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