Vietnamese Caramelized Pork Recipes

I rarely cook with pork as Carlos is not a fan of it but I will cook them occasionally if I get a chance to buy the pork from Chinatown. In Vietnam they will normally use fatty pork or pork ribs for this dish but I just used the lean pork I have in my freezer. This dish has a lovely sweet and savory taste that is highly addictive. You can use chicken meat for this dish too.

Ingredients :

1 pound of pork – cut into thin strip
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
2 green chilies – slice thinly
2 tbsp sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
2 tbsp fish sauce (nuoc mam)
2 tsps ground black pepper

1. Marinate the pork with fish sauce and black pepper and set it aside for an hour.
2. Heat up about 2-3 tbsp of oil in a pan on medium high and add in the sugar. Stir from time to time and make sure the sugar does not burn. When the sugar starts to turns into a darker brown color, remove the pan from heat and add in the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for a few second.
3. Place the pan back on heat and add in the slices pork. Let the pork cook for about 1 minute and turn them around to cook the other side. The meat will have a dark golden color from the caramel.
4. The meat will discharge some juice and create a sauce with the caramel. Once that stage is reached, cover the pan and let the pork/sauce mixture simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. If the sauce dry up too fast, add about 1/4 cup of water to it and continue to simmer until the sauce thicken and the pork should dry up and caramelized. If that's not the case, increase the heat until the sauce dry up.
6. Check seasoning and add in green chilies. Serve with warm rice.

Note : You can use less oil if you are using fatty pork.