Thit Kho Trung - Vietnamese Braised Pork and Eggs
The pork is tender and delicious, as are the well-seasoned hard-boiled eggs Thit kho trung is easy to make as well as the delicious, tradition Vietnamese dish
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
Changes:
- 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!