Hue's royal-city kebab: seasoned pork paste molded around stalks of lemongrass and grilled, then rolled at the table in rice paper with herbs, green banana, and star fruit and dunked in a peanut-liver dipping sauce. The lemongrass skewer doubles as both handle and aromatic.
Also known as nem lui Hue, Vietnamese lemongrass skewers.
Reference video
Ingredients
- 400 g fatty pork, minced fine, plus 100 g pork back fat, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves and 2 shallots, minced
- 20 ml fish sauce
- 15 g sugar
- 0.5 tsp white pepper
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 12 lemongrass stalks, trimmed
- rice paper, rice vermicelli, lettuce, mint and perilla, plus sliced star fruit or green banana, for rolling
- 3 tbsp tương (Vietnamese fermented soybean paste), for the dipping sauce
- 50 g ground pork or liver, for the dipping sauce
- 30 g ground roasted peanuts, for the dipping sauce
- 1 garlic clove, minced, and 1 red chilli, chopped, for the dipping sauce
- 150 ml water, for the dipping sauce
How to make it
- 1
Pound or beat the pork, fat, garlic, shallot, fish sauce, sugar, pepper and baking powder until the paste turns pale and springy.
- 2
Bruise each lemongrass stalk with the spine of your knife, then mould a 2 cm sleeve of paste around its top half with oiled hands.
- 3
Grill or broil, turning, 8-10 min until blistered gold with the lemongrass perfuming from inside.
- 4
Simmer the tương dipping sauce 5 min until it coats a spoon.
- 5
Bring everything to the table: each eater wraps a skewer in rice paper with herbs and fruit, pulls out the stalk, and dips.
Pro tip: Bruising the lemongrass before moulding is the Hue move; the crushed core releases its oils into the pork as it grills, seasoning the kebab from the inside out.
Where Nem Lui comes from
Huế was the imperial capital and its cuisine is the most elaborate in Vietnam — many small dishes, precise assembly, and a great deal of table work by the diner. Nem lụi is a characteristic example: the cooking is simple and the eating is a construction project involving a dozen components.
How Nem Lui is cooked
The pork is worked into a paste rather than a mince, traditionally by pounding, until it becomes smooth and springy. That springiness is a texture Vietnamese cooking values highly and it comes from working the protein, sometimes with a little baking powder and a period of chilling — the same mechanism as Balkan ćevapi, arrived at independently.
Wrapped around a lemongrass stalk, it grills fast over charcoal. The dipping sauce is where Huế shows its complexity: tương — a fermented soybean base — cooked with ground pork or liver, peanut, garlic and chilli into a thick savoury sauce that is unlike any other dip in Vietnamese cooking.
Ingredients and shopping
Pork shoulder with a good proportion of fat, plus a little pork skin traditionally, worked to a paste. Thick lemongrass stalks. Rice paper, rice vermicelli, and a large plate of herbs — mint, perilla, coriander, lettuce.
Green banana and star fruit, sliced thin, are the two components most often omitted abroad and they are what make the roll taste of Huế: astringency and sourness against the rich pork and the heavy sauce. The dipping sauce needs fermented soybean paste; a peanut-hoisin approximation is common but noticeably different.
How Nem Lui is served
Assembled at the table: rice paper, lettuce, herbs, vermicelli, a piece of nem lụi slid off its stalk, green banana and star fruit, rolled and dipped. Beer. The assembly is part of the meal and Huế restaurants bring the components separately by design.
Common mistakes
Using loose mince
The pork must be worked to a smooth springy paste. Loose mince falls off the lemongrass and has the wrong texture.
Omitting green banana and star fruit
They supply astringency and sourness against the rich pork. Without them the roll is one-note.
A peanut-hoisin sauce instead of the fermented soybean one
It is the common shortcut and it is much sweeter and flatter than the Huế original.
Bamboo skewers
The lemongrass flavours the pork from inside as it grills. Bamboo gives you a plain pork skewer.
Nem Lui: questions and answers
What is nem lụi wrapped around?
A stalk of lemongrass, which acts as both handle and aromatic, flavouring the pork from the inside as it grills.
What is the dipping sauce?
A Huế speciality based on tương, fermented soybean paste, cooked with ground pork or liver, peanut, garlic and chilli. Peanut-hoisin versions are a common but flatter shortcut.
Sources and further reading
- Hue lemongrass skewers (nem lui hue) — SBS Food
- NEM LỤI - Hue Lemongrass Skewers Pork - Famous Hue Specialty Food — Hue Cooking Class
