Vietnamese Quick Braised Pork Belly

[EvillyChic]

Hi everyone,

I am Rose, a Vietnamese student from Finland.

Today, I want to share a Vietnamese dish that is so easy to make, yet super tasty, and almost foolproof: my version of (Southern) Vietnamese Quick Braised Pork Belly in Fish Sauce. (Fear not the fishy smell of the Vietnamese traditional fish sauce; it’s perfectly complimented with this dish thanks to the roasted garlic and black pepper)

I don't know how to add picture in this post so if you want an extra detailed instruction with photos in every step. Kindly refer to my blog post here: http://simplyafoodblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/vietnamese-quick-braised-pork-belly/

Ingredients

500g of pork belly with skin still on

2 tbsp. fish sauce

3 tbsp. granulated white sugar

1 tbsp. water

2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped

½ tsp. grounded black pepper (freshly grounded is best)

Instructions

Step 1: Wash the belly with salty water and dry it with kitchen towel. Slide pork belly into thin rectangular vertically.

Step 2: Get a clean small bowl and mix fish sauce + sugar + water together. It does not need to be completely dissolved.

Step 3: Place the slices of pork belly on a small non-stick frying pan.

Step 4: Put the pan onto the stove, turn the heat on high. Without adding any excess oil. Leave the pan there for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, you can see the steam coming out from your pan, that’s totally normal and not a sign of burning.

Step 5: Now you can starting hearing the fat coming out of the pork belly sizzling on the pan. Let the pan sit on heated stove for 3 more minutes, until the under of the belly slides start to turn golden. Flip all over, like this.

Step 6: Wait for 5 more minutes until the other sides turn golden too. Put all the garlic in; give it another stir until the garlic start to be aromatic.

Step 7: Then pour all the fish sauce mixture into the pan.

Give it a quick and even stir. At first you can see the water in the fish sauce mix boil and evaporate very quickly while the sugar start to caramelize.

Step 8: Wait for 5 more minutes or more with flipping the pork belly from side to side for even browning, until you achieve this: golden brown shiny slices of pork belly slices. The water should almost all evaporated, just a little sauce left, enough to coat the outside of every slices.

Step 9: Sprinkle grounded black pepper on top. You can now enjoy the most wonderful aroma in Vietnamese cuisine: the mixed heaven in your nose of roasted garlic, caramelized sugar, freshly grounded black pepper, and fish sauce.

Try a slice now. Chew. Uhhhmmm. I know! Hey, let’s resist trying another, because if you continue, who knows if there is anything left for real serving, LOL.

Step 10: Serve warm with cooked white rice. And dig in! Challenge your chopstick handling skill!

This is a super easy Vietnamese dish to try if you are new to our cuisine. So fear not, and hold up your fish sauce bottle.

Rose,

__________________

[Lukaas]

Nice one rose ...