Sticky Pork & Rice-Noodle Lettuce Wraps

The lettuce wrap is one of those dishes that's structurally a salad but eats like fancy finger food. You put the components on a platter, let everyone build their own, and watch a normal Tuesday dinner become slightly festive. This particular version — pork belly, glazed sticky, rice noodles for substance, baby gem lettuce as the wrapper — borrows the bones of Vietnamese bún chả without the precision of the actual dish. It's an approximation, gestured-toward, and that's honest.

The pork is the work. You start with pork belly chunks (the fatty cut — don't substitute leaner pork or the glaze won't have anything to cling to), toss in a marinade of soy, honey, ginger, garlic, and five-spice. Air fry at high heat for 15 minutes, brushing with extra marinade halfway, until the edges go properly lacquered — sticky, caramelised, slightly crisp at the corners.

The photo shows the platter: pale-green lettuce cups arranged on a coral plate, each filled with rice noodles, fresh herbs, julienned carrot, and a few chunks of glazed pork on top. They look almost flower-like, with the pork glowing dark brown against the white noodles. There's no formal "recipe" for the assembly — you just put the components out and let people make their own.