RECIPE: CARAMELISED PORK

The G household love eating Vietnamese food, and our favourite restaurant is this tiny place in O’Connor, ACT called TuDo Vietnamese Restaurant. My son’s favourite dish is their Ginger Squid (I’ll post my version soon). I can honestly say that TuDo is Canberra’s best Vietnamese restaurant. They make a really mean Vietnamese caramelised pork…..and if I may say so, I think mine ain’t that bad either. This is how I made it. You may substitute the pork with beef.

Ingredients
1 kg pork – sliced thinly (I used leg pork)
2 large onions – sliced about ½ cm thick
50 g caster sugar*
50 g brown sugar*
175 ml water*
40 ml Nuoc Cham sauce (see recipe HERE)
20 ml lime juice
½ tsp salt
2 red chillies – de-seeded and sliced finely
½ tsp chinese five spice powder
3 cloves garlic – minced
Oil for frying
2 spring onion – sliced finely at an angle
Crushed peanuts – optional

Method
Heat oil in work and fry the pork in batches until brown. Repeat process and set aside. Turn off the heat and set the wok aside (no need to wash, we will be using it again).

In a saucepan, make the caramel sauce by boiling together *, stirring together constantly with a whisk, until the liquid turns golden. On low heat, carefully add the Nuoc Cham sauce and the lime juice. Stir to mix.

Heat the wok again and fry the garlic and onions until the onions are transparent. Add in the pork and mix well.

Add in the chilli, 5 spice powder, salt and the caramel sauce. Mix well and cook for 1 min. Transfer to dish and garnish with spring onion and peanuts. Serve with rice, vegetables and NUOC CHAM sauce.