This Vietnamese Thit Kho Trung recipe is a slow, low braise made with delicious and tender pork, and egg yolks that are hardboiled and have taken in all the seasoning. It is traditionally served during New Year’s Day due to of the way it is preserved after cooking.
It’s salty, savory, and a little sweet, seasoned by using fish sauce and soy sauce, served with hard-boiled eggs. It’s served on top of a huge mound of white rice that has been steamed with the addition of mustard greens that have been picked. These are memories and tastes from my youth.
The pan-asian pork & eggs dish
This dish can be seen in slightly modified versions across different ethnic cuisines, not only Vietnamese. I’ve encountered variations in Japanese cuisine, Chinese food, and Taiwanese food. It’s actually very similar to the recipes that I use to make Filipino pork Adobo as well as chicken Adobo.
I’m not sure of the connection behind why all these Asian dishes have this. Maybe it’s because they are readily available and readily available ingredients to make a simple dish. It’s easy to keep, and tastes great too.
Slices of meat for use
If you can locate pork belly that has bones and bones, you’ll get more success than belly, and you could also substitute any other cut, particularly in the event that you prefer it more lean. The ideal proportion of pork to this dish is about 1/2 pork belly, and the other 1/4 is a more leaner cut such as shoulder.
Pork belly and fat are delicious, but when the fat-to-meat ratio isn’t quite right I am left with chunks of fat, and no other food items to balance it with. If you are attentive when choosing the cuts that have an appropriate ratio you can get it right.
In the area around me in Southern California’s Little Saigon, you can obtain a more premium grade in pork belly from Quang Minh Mini Market. It’s more expensive however there appears to be an agreement that it’s worth the money-something I’ll need to research! But, I’m getting great results with thitkho making use of close Vietnamese or Filipino supermarkets during the interim.
The sauce, seasoning and sauce
Below are three brands that I choose to use for my seasoning: Rico coconut soda, Kikkoman soy sauce, as well as Three Crabs Brand fish sauce. The brand with the most soy sauce can be found in Koon Chun, to be utilized in a pinch to color, but you ought to make the own basic caramel color (nuoc mau).
Notes for cooking
I’ve also experimented with using thin slices of yellow onions to add an interesting taste to this dish. You can take the onion out after the final braise, if you prefer, as it has been able to lose all it’s flavor in the broth.
Make adjustments to the seasoning once the liquid is reduced to a consistency that you like Try experimenting using the fish sauce, soy sauce and salt to taste and record it so that you can remember what to do the next time. This recipe is very adaptable also if you plan to prepare larger quantities for your family. I am a fan of eggs cooked like this recipe, and with a ratio of 1:1, making it difficult to have too many.
egg upgrade. If you’re feeling extra fancy, instead boiling them for hard yolks, follow the steps in my Ramen egg recipe to get gooey jammy yolks. You can also marinate them in the sauce of this recipe prior to serving eggs.
Serving and storage
When I was a child, I loved making different parts of this dish by mashing the yolk with rice before pouring the sauce onto it. My friends would always ask the cook to prepare this dish, even when they grew old. They’d ask for this food along with “extra sauce” for y’all salt lovers. It’s an easy and efficient way to extend the meal by adding more rice as well.
It is typically served with a side of dua chua (pickled mustard greens) that provide a refreshing and crunchy contrast. Any type of meat that is salty like this can be enjoyed with a vinegary, pungent pickle.
After you have refrigerated this dish, the fat will harden on top. As we normally make use of pork belly in this recipe I’ll scrape a bit of it off. The meat and the dish remain super tender and fatty even without it!
Thit Kho Trung – Vietnamese Braised Pork and Eggs
Ingredients
- 2 lb (907.2 g) pork I like 50% belly 50% shoulder
- tap water for first boil
- 6 fl oz Rico coconut soda Coke or 7-Up works in a pinch
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp salt
- filtered water
- 4 tbsp caramel color (nuoc mau) Depending on how dark your caramel sauce gets, you may not need to use all of it.
- 8 large hard-boiled eggs
- 1 yellow onion split into 8 large chunks
Instructions
- Slice the meat in 1.5" Cubes. I prefer this size because it is easy eating, and it cooks quicker than one large chunk of pork. Bring 3-4 cups of tap water to a boil at a high temperature, or enough to completely cover the meat. Once the water is boiling it's time to add the pork for 1-2 minutes to scrub it. Rinse the pork in flowing water till the liquid becomes clean.
- Incorporate the coconut water along with the salt, and fish sauce into the pot. Then, add the water that has been filtered to almost covers the pork.
- The heat should be turned up to high. If it's boiling, reduce the temperatures to 25% or until you can still have a low boiling. Let it simmer for 1.5 up to two hours in total and then cover for the initial 40 minutes. Make sure to stir and check the pot once every 20 minutes. As long as you keep cooking the pork, the more soft the pork will become. In the last 40 minutes of cooking, open the cover and allow the liquid to reduce so that you will get more concentrated sauce later.
- Create this caramel colour (nuoc mau) in a separate pan and then add it into the pot of Kho Create the hard-boiled eggs by adding eggs to a pan and cover them with cold water to the extent of 1 inch. Bring the water to a boil over moderate-high temperature. Remove from the heat and let it rest for eight minutes. Then, cool it under running water and take off the shells.
- In the final 30-40 minutes of cooking, add the eggs that have been peeled and the onions.
- The objective is to reduce the liquid by 1/3 of the amount you started with however you can achieve it according to your personal taste of the sauce as well as the pork tenderness. If the pork reaches an ideal level of doneness then re-season it with either fish sauce or salt or add water to thin it out to suit your preferences. Be aware that you would like it to be slightly saltier as it's likely to become diluted alongside rice.
Notes
- The soy sauce stick is removed together with the fish sauce :).
- I added pork shoulder split 50/50 with belly because I like to get more lean cuts instead of belly all the time, but you can pick which cuts you prefer!
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The layer of pork fat makes dish more delicious. I choose pork with 60% fat for my recipe