Vietnamese Braised Pork With Eggs (Thit Heo Kho Trung) Cooking Recipe

 

Thit Heo Kho Trung (Vietnamese Braised Pork With Eggs) also known as Thit Kho Tau. This delicious dish is particularly unique and special during the traditional Vietnamese new year where most people will cook and have this dish on their dining table. Some people also like to call it a Thit Kho Nuoc Dua (Meat Stewed in Coconut Juice). It's often served with pickled bean sprouts, Vietnamese chives and white rice. Or spooned plenty of sauce over rice which I can never get enough of. It's definitely the perfect Vietnamese tradition comfort dish especially on a rainy day. 

What makes this a Vietnamese tradition dish is because of their famous Nuoc Mam (Fish Sauce), which people normally use a lot in their cooking. If you got Nuoc Mam in your cooking, you know you are about to fire up some divine Asian dishes. That being said, I was born and raised in Vietnam, but my mother tongue language is Khmer so we don’t really use much fish sauce in our cooking, but instead more of making the dressing. After my family migrated to Canada, and eventually I moved to the State with my new lovely family, we were introduced to more Chinese cooking. It was not so surprised to me because my sister-in-law was Chinese. So commonly, there is always a bottle of oyster sauce and sesame oil in our condiment pantries. That is what we normally use, especially in a braised/caramelized dish, which I am about to show you in this dish. Not so Vietnamese tradition, but it brings very similar taste. The only difference is probably the used oyster sauce instead of fish sauce.

Traditionally, we like to use this (picture above) fatty attached to the meat with skin on: like pork belly, pork butts cut or pork shoulder that come with boneless or bone in which am using in this recipe.  

However, feel free to use any cut you desire.  I love to buy this bone in cut simply because I can make two perfect dinner dishes with it.

I cut out the meat around the bone, then sliced cut into about 1-½ to 2 inch chunk. For the bone part, I use it to make the broth for my soup; Genius right :)

After you cut all your meat. 

Parboiled all the meat (bone and chunk meat) together for 2 to 5 minutes, drain and rinse under tap water. Meanwhile bring another pot of water over high heat to a boil, then add the bone part and simmer at low heat for 2 to 3 hours long till meat fall off  the bone and break down into tenderness delicious. Add in any of your favorite vegetable and there you have it, a delicious pot of soup to serve along with your Thit Heo Kho Trung and good steamy jasmine rice. This is just my simply method of how you could use that bone part, but go ahead and store in your freezer for future use or just to make the broth out of it; however you desire.

For the eggs, boil like how you normally do. Cover the eggs with water over medium high heat for 7 to 10 minutes. 

Take out and immediately put in a bowl of cold water for easy to peel and stop from overcook the eggs. Or in the same pot, drain out the water and pour cold tap water. 

Peel and set aside 

Ingredients: 

3lbs boneless pork shoulder ( after i separate the bone and the meat)

4 cups water
4 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tbsp white/brown sugar

1 tsp black/white freshly ground pepper

1 tsp salt 
1 tsp mushroom dark soy sauce or any kind of thick dark soy sauce you have available in your pantry

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

11 hard-boiled eggs ; my kids loves eggs so I put a lot but really is up to you to use as much or as little.

Directions:

Put chunk pork in your cooking pot, add in all your ingredient except eggs and water.

Stir well and place over medium high heat. Stir occasionally for about 7 minutes.

Add the eggs, toss well for another 3 minutes, then add in 4 cups of water.

Bring to a boil, skim off the scum and the fat very well as shown in the picture. After skim off all the scum and fat, cover the lid and turn down your heat to medium low. Let it sits on just slightly boil heat for 45 minutes to an hour. Remove from the heat and serve, and that's my family version of Vietnamese delicious tradition Thit Kho Trung. What's your, share in the comment below. I would love to know and learn more. As always "Enjoy and Happy Cooking" !