Grilled Vietnamese Lemongrass Pork Chops

Grilling and chilling at the end of autumn. The weather is getting colder and the sun sets early, but Brian’s outdoor kitchen is still open. We marinated pork chops with limes from our trees, hot chili peppers from our garden, sliced lemongrass, fish sauce, garlic and shallots. The recipe was from an LA Times article that caught my eye in 2019. I dusted it off and decided to give it a go.
                          
The sliced lemongrass was fragrant while it was waiting to be put in the marinade.

Once the chops had marinated for 6 hours and the grill was 500 degrees, it was already dark. So what? The moon was out and the heat from the grill kept me warm. 


The grill was oiled and super hot when I threw the pork chops on. Only 4-5 minutes per side and they were ready to be feasted on.

 


We also made a side dish of radish and cucumber nuoc cham salad. Nuoc cham is a Vietnamese dipping sauce that we used as a salad dressing. Our salad was made with radishes, tomatoes, Persian cucumbers and edible flowers. Berlin gave me the flower seeds for Father’s Day and we grew them in our outdoor kitchen herb garden. The varieties we used were dianthus pinks and marigold sparkies. 




Tess plucked the petals for the nuoc cham salad.


The nuoc cham salad came out beautiful. The dressing is a mixture of fish sauce, lime and sugar. Nuoc cham is typically a dipping sauce, so if you are using it as a dressing, go easy on the sugar.


The pork chops were juicy on the inside and caramelized on the outside. Served with rice and our salad, it was the perfect autumn meal.



Thanks for reading and keep cooking! See you next time.

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