Every single Vietnamese person on this planet has probably had this dish. And when they had this dish, they probably had it for DAYS. It’s a staple to have on the stove of a working families home, and a staple to have to bring in the Vietnamese New Year! At some point, you probably hated and dreaded this dish, but when you got a little older, probably got all sorts of tingly nostalgic feeling eating it!
Yeah homies, we talking about thit kho! Vietnamese Carmelized Pork stew (& sometimes with egg and tofu..)
The Filipinos got their pork adobo, but we come armed with our THIT KHO!
Ingredients:
- Pork. Pork belly, Pork shoulder, Pork butt…whatever pork you can get your hands on. I personally prefer the skin on and with some fat layered with meat (but not too fatty). I also prefer the cheaper cuts with lines of fat running through the meat.
- Sugar, oil, fish sauce, black pepper
- Onion, some garlic
- Optional: COCO soda
- Optional: tofu and boiled eggs (or fried boiled eggs- boil, peel egg and fry with your safety goggles on lol)
Pressure Cookin` Time!
- Cut your pork into nice large chunks. I’m talking 1/2 – 1 square inch pieces or something around there.
- Cut up your onion into large pieces & mince your garlic
- Mix your pork, onion, garlic, some black pepper, and fish sauce and begin to let this sit on ‘saute’ mode of the pressure cooker. We’re looking to give our meat some color.
- In a small sauce pan, heat up some oil and put in some scoops of sugar. We’re gonna create the famous Vietnamese caramel. Watch this closely and work on medium low heat. The sugar gets a bit brown and then it does this ‘foaming’ thing and that’s when you good and need to get that goodness off the heat and into your pork mixture. Any more time cooking will yield a bitter burnt caramel that you definitely do not want to ruin your pork stew with. You can skip this step and use some dark molasses too. It’s healthy and a good alternative.
- If you have your boiled eggs or tofu, this is the time to throw them in!
- Pour in 95% of a can of the COCO soda (coconut soda)
- Drink the 5% that’s left, you deserve it rockstar!
- Add enough water to slightly cover your pork and set for 25 or 30 minutes.
Don’t tell your mama that you made this amazing dish, because she might get a little worried that you don’t need her anymore. If you do want to bring this up to your mama, I highly suggest you go about saying, “Oh mama, I miss and love you so much and can’t stop thinking about your food..I tried to make it myself (omit: and it was delicious) but nothing beats your cooking! I’m so lucky to have you as my mama!”
Yeah, eat that guys! You are totally welcome!