However, it is also customarily offered during T’t, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Thit kho tau (also known as thit kho for short) is a highly well-liked dish in Vietnamese homes for everyday dining. The pork belly becomes more soft the longer it is cooked. The fat will congeal on the surface if you prepare this meal in advance, making it easier to remove and a little healthier! Additionally, this enables the tastes to mingle little more. Serve alongside rice.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 45 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 2 pounds pork belly, trimmed
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 5 shallots, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- ground black pepper to taste
- 13 fluid ounces coconut water
- 6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
Instructions
- Slice pork belly into 1-inch pieces layered with skin, fat, and meat.
- Heat sugar in a large wok or pot over medium heat until it melts and caramelizes into a light brown syrup, about 5 minutes. Add pork and increase the heat to high. Cook and stir to render some of the pork fat, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Stir shallots and garlic into the wok. Add fish sauce and black pepper; stir until pork is evenly coated. Pour in coconut water and bring to a boil. Add hard-boiled eggs and reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer, checking occasionally and adding a little water if the liquid evaporates too much, until pork is tender, about 1 hour.
- Remove from the heat and let stand for about 10 minutes. Skim fat from the surface of the dish.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 410 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 16 g |
| Cholesterol | 267 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 27 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 1832 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 26 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is really great! I do add about a tbsp or two of hoisin sauce to give it colour. It tastes the best immediately but if you put it in the fridge overnight you can take out the cooled fat easily the next morning.
I added the suggested sugar amount and mixed it with water to get the carmelized color. However, it wasnt enough to give it the brown coloring. I ended up adding a dash of soy sauce and also threw in lemongrass. The lemongrass was definitely a nice touch. Meanwhile, I tried cooking the pork for an hour at low, but it was not getting tender. Hence, I just turned it up to medium heat until the meat and fat tenderized.
When i carmelized the sugar i had trouble because the recipe didnt say put anything with it. so i added some butter at it worked!
This recipe is great. Be careful not to overcook the eggs and also understand that ‘shallots’ is not a unit of measurement. The shallots I bought from the store were much bigger than average, a fact I was not aware of until I finished the recipe and realized I had way too much in the recipe!
(3/6/16) Easy, used thin cut pork belly without skin, subbed onion for shallot, thickened sauce with corn starch
This was very good, but you do have to watch the sugar carefully or it will quickly go from cartelized to a hard, burnt lump. Yes, that was my mistake . . . second try was better, but my vietnamese husband still added 2 TB of chicken marinade for coloring. Very easy, and, according to my spouse, very authentic.
It was a little too sweet for my liking, ended up adding water to bring down the sweetness. I also added two star anise to give it some additional flavor (just like my mom made). Overall, good recipe, I would make again.