Found in Cambodian and Vietnamese cuisines, this dish of pork cubes and hard-boiled eggs braised in a mixture of caramelized sugar, juice of young coconut and fish sauce is often served during tết, the Vietnamese lunar new year.
Cook’s notes
I’ve cooked this dish many times before using the traditional method. Caramelize sugar in a wok, add pork cubes, cook until the sticky syrup coats the meat, add coconut juice and hard-boiled eggs and braise until the pork is tender.
But I always found the first stage of cooking — tossing the meat in sticky caramelized sugar — problematic. The sugar often seizes when the pork is added because the temperature drops immediately. So, I tried another way of cooking this lovely dish. And I find that this modified cooking procedure is easier, less messy and less prone to disaster.
Tip #1: Use white sugar, not brown. The lovely caramel color of the dish is acquired by properly caramelizing the sugar until amber colored.
#Tip #2: Use the juice from a young coconut. The juice from mature coconut will ruin the dish.
Vietnamese caramelized pork and eggs
Ingredients
- fish sauce
- 1 kilogram pork belly (2.2 pounds) uncut
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 shallots peeled and chopped
- 4 cloves garlic peeled and chopped
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1¾ cups coconut juice
- 6 eggs hard-boiled and shelled
Instructions
- In a large shallow pan, boil two cups of water with a tablespoon of fish sauce. Drop in the pork, bring to the boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Scoop out the pork and cut into 1½-inch cubes.
- In a wok, heat the cooking oil.
- Saute the shallots and garlic for about a minute then stir in the pork cubes.
- Drizzle in two to three tablespoons fish sauce and leave to allow the pork to soak up the liquid and render some fat.
- While the pork cooks in fish sauce, melt the sugar with a quarter cup of coconut juice until syrupy and amber colored.
- Pour the caramelized sugar over the pork and toss until every pork cube is coated with the syrup.
- Pour in the remaining cup and a half of coconut juice and add the hard-boiled eggs.
- Cover the wok and braise the pork and eggs for about 30 minutes or until the pork is cooked through and the sauce has reduced to less than half.
- Taste, add more fish sauce if needed, before serving with rice.
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