Thit Kho

(Vietnamese Braised Pork Belly with Boiled Egg)

Ready in 3 hours

Serves 5 people

Ingredients

• 2lb pork belly

• 8 hard-boiled eggs

• 2 can of coconut soda Rico brand

• 6 tbsp fish sauce

• 2 tbsp soy sauce 

• 2 tbsp sugar

• 2 tsp salt

• 6 green onion/scallions, white ends

• 4 tbsp caramel color (nuoc mau) Depending on how dark your caramel sauce gets, you may not need to use all of it.

Preparation

Marination

1. Wash and rinse the pork belly with salt and vinegar

2. Crush the scallion lightly

3. Marinate pork belly with fish sauce, soy sauce, scallion 

4. Leave it to marinate for at least 30min

5. Boiled eggs, medium to hard base on preference

Cooking

1. Cut pork belly in square pieces roughly 1” by 1”

2. With medium to low heat, lightly cook the pork to lightly cook 

3. Add the coconut soda to the pot

4. When it hits a boil, drop the heat until you still see a slight boil, maybe about 25% heat and let it simmer uncovered for about 1.5 to 2 hours. Check and stir the pot every 20 minutes. The longer you cook it, the softer the pork gets. Leaving it slightly uncovered lets the liquid reduce so you get a nice concentrated sauce later.

5. Make the caramel color (nuoc mau) and add it to the pot.

6. Add the hard boiled eggs to the pot of pork in the last ~30-40 minutes of cooking.

7. Eventually we want the liquid to reduce to about 1/3 or 1/4 of the original

Nuoc Mau

1. Add sugar to the pan on 50% heat.

2. Constantly stir the sugar to allow it to evenly heat. At this point, your sugar will begin to melt and clump.

3. Continue to cook and stir until you have a nice dark caramel color.