Shrimp and pork pita fried like shrimp toast

Shrimp toast is pounded shrimp spread on bread and fried until it crackles, and across Southeast Asia it comes with something sweet and sharp to dip it in. Arayes is a Lebanese street snack, pita stuffed with spiced mince and toasted until the bread is glass. Put the two in one pan and you get this. The pita is sturdier than white bread, so it comes out a crust rather than a sponge, and nobody has to heat a pot of oil to make it, which I consider a public service.

1. Make the dipping sauce first so it can sit. Whisk two-thirds of the fish sauce, the lime juice, the sugar and the warm water until the sugar is gone, then stir in the chile and some of the garlic, about a third. This is nuoc cham, more or less, the sauce Vietnam puts on half the table. It should taste sour, salty, sweet and hot, in about that order, and the garlic and chile get louder the longer it stands.
2. Pulse the shrimp to a coarse, sticky paste in a food processor, about 10 pulses. Add the pork, the remaining garlic, the ginger, the scallion whites and the rest of the fish sauce, and pulse a few more times, only until it comes together. It should look pale pink and cling to the blade. No processor? Chop the shrimp with a heavy knife until it is a paste, then mash everything together with a fork. It takes longer and makes you feel like a cook in a market.
3. Spread the paste evenly over the top of each whole pita, no thicker than ¼ inch, leaving a thin border of bare bread so nothing scorches.
4. Heat about 1½ tbsp of the oil in a large skillet over medium. Lay in two pitas, paste side down, and lean on each one hard with a fish slice so the whole layer lies flat against the pan. Cook 4 to 5 minutes, until the pita edge looks crisp and the paste feels firm when you press it through the bread, or reads 160°F at its thickest. If it still gives, cook it another minute. Flip and toast the bread side 1 to 2 minutes, then drain on a rack. Cooking for more, work two pitas at a time with fresh oil for each batch.
5. Cut each pita into four wedges with kitchen shears or a bread knife. Pile them on a board with the cucumber, the herbs, the scallion greens and the lime wedges, and put the sauce in a bowl wide enough for dunking.

Wrap a wedge in a mint leaf, drag it through the sauce and eat it with your hands. A fork here would be an affectation.