Why This Recipe Works: To get uniform, moist pieces of meat in our Thai pork lettuce wrap recipe, we chopped pork in the food processor and then marinated it in a little fish sauce so it would retain moisture during cooking. To refine our Thai pork recipe’s taste, we added sugar to balance the tart (lime juice), salty (fish sauce), and hot (dried chiles) flavors characteristic of Thai cuisine.

• 1 lb pork tenderloin, trimmed of silver skin and fat, cut into 1-inch chunks, and frozen for 20 minutes
• 2 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp white rice
• 1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 3 medium shallots, peeled and sliced into thin rings (about 1/2 cup)
• 3 Tbsp roughly chopped mint leaves
• 3 Tbsp roughly chopped cilantro leaves
• 3 Tbsp juice from 2 limes
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 head Bibb lettuce, washed and dried, leaves separated and left whole

1. Place half of meat in food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped, 5 to six 1-second pulses. Transfer ground meat to medium bowl and repeat with remaining chunks. Stir 1 tablespoon fish sauce into ground meat and marinate, refrigerated, 15 minutes.
2. Toast rice in small skillet over medium-high heat; cook, stirring constantly, until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and cool 5 minutes. Grind rice with spice grinder, mini food processor, or mortar and pestle until it resembles fine meal, 10 to 30 seconds (you should have about 1 tablespoon rice powder).
3. Bring broth to simmer in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork and cook, stirring frequently, until about half of pork is no longer pink, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon rice powder over pork; continue to cook, stirring constantly, until remaining pork is no longer pink, 1 to 1½ minutes longer. Transfer pork to large bowl; let cool 10 minutes.
4. Add remaining 1½ tablespoons fish sauce, remaining 2 teaspoons rice powder, shallots, lime juice, sugar, red pepper flakes, mint, and cilantro to pork; toss to combine. Serve with lettuce leaves. I also served with hoisin sauce topped with chopped peanuts.

Notes from the test kitchen: We prefer natural pork in this recipe. If using enhanced pork (pork that has been injected with a salt solution to enhance the flavor and juiciness), skip the marinating and only use 2 Tbsp of the fish sauce.