Vietnamese
Vietnamese Caramel Pork
Vietnamese Caramel Pork is Vietnamese home cooking, eaten at dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 2 lb pork shoulder
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
- 3 shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 cups coconut water
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp neutral oil
- 4 cups cooked jasmine rice
How to cook it
- Melt the sugar with 2 tbsp water in a heavy pot over medium heat until it turns a deep amber caramel, about 6 minutes.
- Add the oil, shallots, and garlic and stir for 1 minute, standing back as it sputters.
- Add the cubed pork and toss to coat in the caramel, searing for 5 minutes.
- Pour in the coconut water and fish sauce, add the black pepper, and bring to a simmer.
- Cover partly and braise until the pork is tender and the sauce is syrupy, about 40 minutes.
- Add the peeled hard-boiled eggs for the last 10 minutes to glaze, then serve over the jasmine rice.
Serve it with
A Vietnamese dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Vietnamese Caramel Pork, read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
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Something to sip
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand, so the absences below are as deliberate as the presences. Vietnamese Caramel Pork carries eggs, fish, and coconut. It is free of the remaining 7 allergens on that list.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | Yes | Bun Cha |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | Yes | Lemongrass Tofu Stir-Fry |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | Yes | Bun Cha |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Hearty
- Protein
- High
- Protein quality
- Complete
- Food groups it covers
- Grains, Meat or fish, and Egg
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Vietnamese Caramel Pork takes about 60 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a fair bit of work. It is eaten at dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on pork, caramel, and egg.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from the United States.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.