Thit kho or pork stewed in caramel sauce

Thit kho

Thit kho, or pork stewed in caramel sauce and coconut juice with some hard boiled eggs, is one of the most traditional Vietnamese dishes for Tet, the New Year. But you can make it anytime - it's the ultimate Vietnamese comfort food. Make a pot with lots of sauce to pour over your rice, and to dip lightly pickled bean sprouts or cabbage in - so delicious!

This dish is not for the faint of heart when it comes to some fatty pork - it's a special occasion, or every once in a while, dish, not one you can have too often :)  You can pick off any big chunks of fat and skin and discard, but you really do need the fat to slow cook this down and have really rich, tender pork that has soaked up all the flavors of the caramel sauce, coconut juice, fish sauce and black pepper. Adding hard boiled eggs may seem strange if you're unfamiliar with Vietnamese food and with this dish, but they are delicious and it is always sad when the last of the eggs is gone. Serve this with rice and lightly pickled bean sprouts - click here for the recipe - or sliced cucumbers to help cut the richness and add a nice contrast.

• 1-1/2 lbs. boneless pork leg or shoulder with a good bit of fat and skin attached
• 6 eggs, hard boiled for 7 minutes, and peeled
• 1 can coconut juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1 tsp. black pepper, more to taste

Cut the meat into large chunks with some fat and skin attached.

In a large pot or enameled dutch oven, something light metal or enameled cast iron that is a light color, heat up the water over medium heat. Once it is simmering, add the sugar. Heat up the sugar carefully until it starts to darken until it's a dark caramel color. Add the coconut juice, fish sauce, pepper and the pieces of pork. Stir everything together well.

Cover and let everything simmer, turning the meat to make sure everything is covered in the caramel sauce. Let everything simmer about 1 hour, turning the meat a few times. Add the eggs and let them simmer with the pork for another 30 minutes or more until the meat is very tender. Taste the sauce, and add fish sauce or sugar to adjust the taste to your liking. Add more pepper if you like.

Thit kho simmering on the stove

Serve the pork and eggs with lots of sauce to dip pickled bean sprouts, or sliced cucumbers in and to pour over rice.

Dua gia or pickled bean sprouts

Pickled bean sprouts

Pickled bean sprouts, or dua gia, it typically eaten with kho dishes, or meats or fish stewed in caramel sauce and fish sauce. At Tet, the Lunar New Year, it is served alongside thit kho, pork and eggs stewed in coconut juice, caramel sauce and fish sauce.

These are meant to be more quick pickles, and should be consumed within a few days of making them, though they are best within a few hours of being ready. Typically, this is made simply with bean sprouts and scallions, but you can also add thinly sliced pieces of pickled mustard leaves.

For the brine:

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp. salt
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup water

Vegetables

• 1 lb. bean sprouts
• 4 - 5 scallions, cut into 2" lengths

Heat up the water and dissolve the sugar and salt in it. Add the vinegar and mix thoroughly. Add you vegetables and mix well. You'll need to mix the vegetables well a few times as the bean sprouts give up some of their liquid and shrink down. Let them soak at least 30 - 45 minutes or until you like the flavor - they should have a crisp, tangy flavor.

Drain and serve large amounts of the vegetables alongside your kho dishes. 

Cha ca or salmon cakes with dill and cilantro

Cha ca

Chuc mung nam moi! Happy new year! Monday, January 23 is Tet, the Vietnamese (or Chinese or Lunar) New Year! This year is the year of the dragon!

I am missing my family this weekend, and decided Saturday morning that I wanted to go out and buy food to make for Tet. So Rick and I went out in the snow on Saturday morning to hit Chinatown and the Vietnamese grocery store over there on Grand near Chrystie, to pick up a few things.

I made these cha ca today for part of my spread for Tet. I have always loved cha ca, and there's something about dill and salmon that are so perfect together - check out this Vietnamese soup with salmon and dill sometime. I also made a few other dishes, recipes to follow :)

This is a multi-step process so plan accordingly. First, marinate the salmon a few hours or overnight. Then run through a food processor to make your paste. Then mix in your fresh herbs. Make your salmon patties and steam them for a few minutes. Then pan-fry them on each side. Slice to serve. This is great with a little Vietnamese dipping sauce, nuoc cham, and you can serve as part of a larger meal. You can also roll the slices up with some rice noodles and some fresh herbs in rice paper and dip in nuoc cham.

Cha gio or Vietnamese spring rolls or egg rolls

cha gio

January 23, 2012 is Tet, or the Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the dragon!

While you might be on a New Year's resolutions kick and are trying to eat healthy, here's a recipe for traditional cha gio, or the Vietnamese version of egg rolls or spring rolls. Vietnamese rolls are a bit different from Chinese ones.  They are traditionally wrapped in rice paper rather than a wheat flour wrapper.  The filling has meat, or sometimes a mix of pork and shrimp, veggies like carrot and sometimes jicama, cellophane noodles, and flavors of fish sauce.

This is a recipe you can make for party or gathering, or if you're feeling inspired by the Lunar New Year!

I like to make these pretty small instead of the big full-sized ones so they fry up quickly and you don't have to worry so much about whether or not they are cooked all the way through. Also, really traditional cha gio will use a rice paper wrapper as I use here, but it's pretty common to see them done with a Filipino lumpia wrapper, which is thinner than typical Chinese egg roll wrappers, is easy to use to make uniform, neatly wrapped rolls, and gives you a nice crisp outside. They stay crispier longer, and are also a little easier to work with and to fry without creating bubbles or spatters.  But I really like the flavor of the rice paper wrapper, and it's also gluten-free if you're concerned about that.  They don't get quite as crispy but you the flavor and texture is so good.  You are welcome to use lumpia wrappers if you prefer.  

Also, these are traditionally made with ground pork, and with crab or shrimp sometimes added to the mixture as well.  I've made these with just ground pork, but you can use a combination, or could also try them with ground chicken or turkey if you like, though dark meat is probably better than white meat so they don't dry out. 

I use these triangular rice paper wrappers, basically large circle wrappers that have been cut into quarters.  They're great for making small cha gio that are about 2-3" long.  You may not be able to find these as easily, so if not, you can use the small circle wrappers.

Once you roll up a few, you'll be amazed how quickly you can churn them out - I made about 50 of them in no time!  And of course, if you have friends or family around and can get a little help, it will go even faster.  I learned a little tip from Andrea Nguyen's  fantastic Vietnamese cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen - add a little sugar to the water you use to rehydrate your rice paper wrappers to add a little color to your cha gio when frying them up.

Serve with lettuce, herbs like mint and cilantro, and nuoc cham dipping sauce, or serve as is if you like. You can also try my vegetarian dipping sauce, nuoc cham chay, made with soy sauce instead of fish sauce. Traditionally, cha gio are placed on a lettuce leaf with a few herbs placed on top, rolled up and dipped into nuoc cham.

Red lentil curry soup with carrots and butternut squash

Red lentil curry soup with carrrots and butternut squash

This is a nice and healthy soup with a kick of curry flavors and spice! Perfect for everyone getting a healthy start to the new year, or any time you're craving a smooth and spicy soup. Carrots and butternut squash add even more beautiful orange color to the red lentils and sweet flavors to complement the curry. This is a great vegetarian or vegan soup, or feel free to use chicken broth or stock if you prefer. You can also add a little milk, or dairy alternative milk like almond or rice milk, to loosen it up and give that bit of milkiness or richness feeling. I like it a lot with a little almond milk stirred in at the end - the flavor of almond milk complements the soup really well.

I use a red curry paste, but you can experiment with different curry pastes or curry powders. Soak your red lentils for a few hours before cooking and it will really speed up the cooking process. When everything is really tender, puree the soup to your desired consistency, or do everything in a dice and make a chunky soup.

Baked beans

Baked beans

Happy new year! So I have not posted in ages, but it's a new year, and I'm on break from grad school so I'm going to use this time to try to cook a bit more again! We just got back from visiting family and friends over the holidays and I felt like going through the pantry a bit to see what we had to cook for the week.

Baked beans are perfect for a day when you're holed up inside (we are watching the Rose Bowl - go Badgers!) and can have a pot of beans simmering on the stove for several hours. This is delicious as is, but you can also add bacon if you like, but I'm trying to be a teeny bit healthier :) Feel free to add bacon though - it will add a nice smokiness. Also, if you like them a little tangier, add a little more cider vinegar. You can also add more pepper to give it a little more kick.

Also, it will really depend on your beans, the type, how fresh or old they are, on how long it will take for them to get tender. It can take anywhere from 3-1/2 or 6 hours even so give yourself plenty of time, or plan on making them to serve the next day. You can also cook the beans with just water, bay leaf and the ham hock for the first 2 hours and then add all the rest of the ingredients to speed up the cooking process. The salt and vinegar and ketchup and everything will slow down the cooking time and will make it take longer to cook the beans.

You can cook your beans on the stovetop, or in the oven for the "baked" part of your baked beans :)