Recipe: Caramelised Pork Belly w/ Boiled Eggs and Rice

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

This is classic Vietnamese fare.  Normally the pork is braised for and hour with the boiled eggs but I happened to have a rather large amount of cooked pork belly in the fridge so I though I’d do it a couple of different ways for my housemates.

This is a simple and tasty recipe; it’s a real corker, I’ve written the recipe how it would normally be made with uncooked pork belly.

The belly I had, had already been slow cooked so I put it in about 30minutes into the braising process so it wouldn’t fall apart in the broth, but still have enough time to take up the flavours and be soft and delicious!

Normally this is served with rice . . . 

 ingredients (serves 4-6)

for the caramelising slow braising broth

1/4 side pork belly (1.7kg uncooked weight) (cut into 3-4cm chunks)

500ml coconut water

1 red onion (fine dice)

6 cloves garlic (fine dice)

45g ginger 

30-60ml fish sauce (to taste)

80g palm sugar (or brown sugar)

6 eggs

caramelising slow braising broth

Boil the eggs for 8 minutes, then immediately run under cold water. Once they’re cold enough to handle, peel them, ready for the pot.

Fry the onions until they’re a little charred, then add the ginger and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Deglaze with a little coconut water and pour the mix into a bowl.

In the same pot add the sugar and a slug of coconut water. Cook on a medium heat until the sugar is a dark caramel colour, then add the rest of the coconut water (through a sieve). Careful it will spit!

Add the fish sauce, garlic ginger mix and the boiled eggs and set to simmer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes add the pork belly, bring back up to the boil and set to simmer for another 30mins.

If you don’t have any 3 hr slow roast pork belly kicking about, sear off some pork shoulder and add it in at the same time as the eggs, then simmer for 60 mins. 

At the end of the 60 minutes check the flavour. If it’s needs it, you can sharpen it up with a touch of lime juice just before service.

thinking ahead

You can make this the day before and pop it in the fridge, and reheat when needed.

what could go wrong? (notes)

It’s impossible to cluck this up! Oink.

to serve

Serve it in a large bowl with a ladle in it, and serve with boiled rice.