Vietnam: thit heo kho (pork braised with eggs and coconut)

Preparation: Day 1: 20 minutes; Day 2: 5 minutes (working silently while the children napped)

Marination time: 24 hours

Cook time: 2.5 hours

Serve with: rice or noodles, and coriander

Olivier's: ★★★

This was a bit of an interesting stew, as the flavours and aromas of it are completely different to most things I've smelled, except for in restaurants and markets of suspect hygiene while travelling.  

My search term was "Vietnamese stew" and Google kept throwing up this caramelised pork thing, so while it didn't seem to need a long cook on most of the recipes, this one had a two hour cook time after everything was in the pot, so I used it. Plus, the long marination period kind of counts as a stew, if one thinks of something "stewing in it's own juices."  I also looked at this recipe, which had less of a stew thing going, and fewer flavours, so I didn't really use it as much.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the slow-cooker in the cupboard on this occasion, as I got distracted while reading the recipe and didn't remember that it was a two hour cook, and then I ran out of time this afternoon as chaos descended upon the household with my 2 year old being grumpy with a temperature and the baby spewing on me no fewer than four times. Deep breath.   It all worked out in the end  -  the grumpy one was happy with the rice, egg and pork, and the baby stopped spewing, and a relatively civilised meal was had.

Ingredients 

(some substituted from original recipe due to my general state of confusion when shopping)

800g pork belly (not too fatty), cut into 3 cm cubes 

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 

1 small onion, finely chopped 

2 spring onions bruised and finely chopped

60 ml  fish sauce 

60 ml  soy sauce 

1½ tbsp dark soy sauce 

I½ tsp freshly ground black pepper 

2 tbsp grated palm sugar 

4 star anise stars

2 tbsp peanut oil 

½ onion, sliced 

385ml young coconut juice and 

400ml coconut milk*

375ml water 

4 eggs (but add more if you please), hard-boiled and peeled 

coriander

* This should have been 750ml of coconut juice.  I bought `1 can of it  and discovered, firstly, that it was only 350ml, and secondly, that it was kind of like a coconut "fruit drink", with only 50% coconut juice in it, and some sugar and other things.  I added a tin of coconut milk, but, if I were to try this again, I'd just use coconut water.

Method

1. Cut up pork into cubes and put in a bowl.

2. Add onions, garlic, fish sauce, soy sauces, pepper, palm sugar, and star anise

3. Marinate overnight, coming back every now and then to give it a turn.  The smell will remind you of markets in various places of travel.

4. The next day, 2 ½ hours before serving, slice the half onion and cook in the oil until soft over a medium heat.

5. Remove the onion from the pan and put into a large saucepan, leaving the flavoured oil behind. 

6. If there is not enough oil left, add more

7. Pick the bits of pork out of the marinade, and brown in the pan, removing them to the saucepan with the onion.  Be careful not to crowd the pan, or you will just end up boiling your meat.

8. When the last of the pork is cooked, add the water to the pan to "deglaze" the lovely bits of caramelised marinade and such from the bottom of the pan. Tip it over the meat.

9.  Tip the left over marinade into the saucepan

10. Add your coconut water

11. Bring to the boil and scrap the scum off the top of the broth with a spoon (yes, this is a thing you'll have to do. I was all "no stew of mine will have scum", but then it happened).

12. Reduce to a simmer for an hour

13. Hard boil some eggs in a separate saucepan.  Peel, and add to the stew for the remaining hour.

14. Serve, with rice and chopped coriander.

Next stop: Finland