Hello, I'm Rich Harris and welcome to my Videojug series Asian Bites. in this episode I’ll
be showing you a dish called Thit Kho To, it’s a beautiful Vietnamese caramelized
pork belly dish, full of flavor, it's got ginger, garlic, shallots, coconut, it's delicious
really sticky.
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The first thing you need to do is heat some oil in the pan.
We need a nice hot pan, use something nice and heavy based like a good casserole, you
don't want anything too flimsy otherwise everything is going to burn because it needs to cook
nice and slowly.
So plenty of salt on the pork belly, you want to get some seasoning in there and fry this
off in batches.
Cooking in small amounts you get loads of color on there and it’s not going to sweat
in it’s own juices adding this color at this stage were going to get loads of flavor
into the dish.
I’m using pork belly in this but you could use a pork leg or pork shoulder but make sure
it’s a nice fatty cut.
You need plenty of fat in there because it’s going to slow cook and you want the meat to
stay really nice and succulent and tender.
That’s what we’re looking for, beautiful deep golden caramelization, that’s going
to have loads of flavor later on.
So once that’s caramelized put it on a plate and now we need to make a caramel sauce.
I’m just going to take this pan off the heat, let it cool off a little bit because
we don’t want to burn the caramel right away.
The first thing you want to do is deglaze the pan.
I’m just going to add some shau sing rice wine witch is a really nice fragrant wine,
a little bit like dry sherry so if you can’t get a hold of this maybe try using dry sherry.
A good glug of that in the pan, that’s going to steam up and bring up all those sticky
bits from the bottom of the pan because we want those in our sauce.
So back on the heat, and to that we’re going to add some fish sauce, so fish sauce rather
than soy sauce, it’s got a really nice deep flavor, it’s going to bring out the flavor
of the pork, it smells bad but it tastes great, it’s a really good flavor enhancer.
So a couple tablespoons of that go in, and then this, palm sugar.
You really want to use palm sugar rather than normal sugar, it’s got a delicious, caramelly
sticky lovely flavor.
You are going to add to that and make a deep caramel sauce.
So just let the palm sugar melt and as soon as it’s melted just keep stirring it until
we get a nice deep sticky caramel.
For a list of all the ingredients in this recipe, check out the description box.
Why that smells incredible, you’ve got the depth of the fish sauce, the caramel, and
all those porky juices.
And that’s what I’m looking for, that really nice deep dark amber color.
Still nice and runny because we want a sauce, but that’s what we’re looking for.
So these are little Thai shallots, the red shallots, they are a lot sweeter and not as
strong as our European ones and add a really nice depth of flavor, they are going to add
a bit of crunch to the sauce as well.
So they go in, and then to that, ginger and garlic so straight into our caramel.
After adding those it’s going to bubble up and get a little bit angry so just keep
stirring while we go.
All of these flavors, pork, palm sugar, ginger, and garlic are really authentic flavors in
Vietnamese cooking and this is a classic dish, that’s eaten throughout Vietnam, really
really beautiful dish, and just a perfect comforting dish as well.
The shallots and garlic have had a bit of time to cook out, it’s smelling really,
really fragrant now it’s time to go back in with the pork, and make sure you get all
these lovely resting juices, that’s where all the flavor is you don’t want to loose
any of them at all, get all of those in.
So get in there and give it a good stir around, you want the pork to be really evenly coated.
It smells amazing all of the flavors coming off it’s like a big punch in the face with
a load of garlic and ginger, the caramel there, it’s sticky it’s porky, I can’t wait
to eat this.
So all we need to do now is add the last bit, which is this, some coconut water, and we’re
going to use this instead of stock.
So about 500 mills.
Just bring it up to a simmer pop the lid on and cook for 2 to 2 and a half hours until
it’s nice and sticky, really reduced down, just give it a stir every now and again and
have a check and by the end of it your kitchen is going to smell phenomenal.
So that pork has been cooking away for a good 2 and a half hours now, the kitchen smells
great and it looks brilliant.
That’s exactly what we’re looking for, this sticky caramelized sauce, the pork is
really ,really tender, that’s going to make good eating.
That can just sit for a minute while we make a nice fresh side salad, so, in here I’m
just going to make a little dressing, so some palm sugar, just about a teaspoon, half a
teaspoon roughly, some rice vinegar, good splash of that, and then just for seasoning
some fish sauce.
Just give that a stir together, just until the palm sugar starts to dissolve.
This is going to be a nice kind of zingy salad, loads of vinegar, some chili, and shallots
in there which is going to cut through the fattiness of the pork and go brilliantly with
that sweet caramel sauce.
So into there some red birds eye chili, seeds as well, let’s make it nice and fiery, one
finely chopped shallot, and to keep the salad really fresh some cucumber.
I’ve peeled it, de seeded it and finely sliced it, it’s going to give a nice freshness
and a really good crunch.
So straight in there, give it a little stir around and then some mint leaves.
Fresh mint in salad is just amazing, it makes everything really fragrant, it’s going to
help to cut through the fattiness of the pork, and just really lift the whole dish.
Plenty of mint in there stir that round to combine.
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So that salad is ready, smells really fragrant, full of mint, nice kick of chili and we’re
ready to plate up.
I have some steamed rice here, totally plain rice because all the flavor is in the pork
and the salad, keep this nice and simple.
A good spoonful of rice, and then the main event, this just smells incredible.
Some of this sauce over the top, little bit of salad on the side just to freshen the whole
dish and then just finish with a couple of sprinkles of spring onion.
And there we have it it’s Thit Kho To, my Vietnamese caramelized pork, perfect dish
for the weekend, absolutely delicious.
But as always the truth is in the eating.
Look forward to seeing you back in the kitchen soon for another episode of my Asian bite
series, cheers.
I'm not sharing that with anyone!
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