Vietnamese Caramelized Pork

Note: This is a milestone post … post #2000! Glad we made it this far. 🙂

This recipe is from Bonnie, Ben’s colleague, who gave us her recipe after we visited Mui Ngo Gai.

Caramelized-Pork-8

It did not turned out as the Mui Ngo Gai version but taste wise, it’s good. Sweet and salty at the same time with a strong black pepper taste. Even Arkenzen and Nanzaro loves this.

Ingredients

  • pork belly, cut into small slices (approx 2 lbs, I used pork butt or in Cantonese ‘Char Siew Yoke’)
  • sugar (approx 2-3 tbsp)
  • fish sauce (approx 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons)
  • freshly cracked black pepper, about 2 teaspoons
  • 1 teaspoon crushed chili, optional

Caramelized-Pork-1

Source: Bonnie Leong

Serves 4 to 6

Instructions

Caramelized-Pork-3Over low heat, in a medium size “dry” pot, evenly distribute sugar on bottom of pot. Let the sugar melt without disturbing it. The sugar will caramelize as it melts.When the majority of the sugar had turned a light caramel (Some sugar crystals may still not have melted, but proceed as the caramelized sugar will burn), turn up heat to medium high.
Caramelized-Pork-5Add the pork and stir.The caramel will harden when it in comes in contact with pork, but will melt again once the pork is heated. Stir the pork until all caramel is melted.
Caramelized-Pork-6Once all the caramel has melted stir in fish sauce (1 tbsp). Let pork simmer until cooked.
Caramelized-Pork-7Once pork is cooked add black pepper, crush chili and more fish sauce to taste.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. jason

    Congrats! Here’s to 2000 more!

    1. Ben

      Hi Jason: *shudder* I really don’t know if we have what it takes to go another 2000 posts! Ben

  2. MizzJ

    Wow that looks really easy! I always thought caramelizing foods would be quite complicated. I’ll have to try this. Congrats on post #2000!

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