← Nouns Cooking · Vietnamese

Ingredients

• 4 thin bone-in pork chops (about 800 g)
• 2 Lemongrass, white part, finely minced
• 3 cloves Garlic, minced
• 2 Shallot, minced
• 2 tbsp Fish sauce
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tbsp Honey
• ½ tsp Black pepper
• 2 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 400 g Broken rice (cơm tấm)
• 4 Spring onion, thinly sliced
• 4 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 1 pinch Salt
• 4 tbsp Fish sauce
• 3 tbsp Sugar
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 8 tbsp warm water
• 2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
• 1 Bird's eye chilli, finely chopped
• 1 Cucumber, sliced
• 2 Tomato, sliced
• 4 fried eggs (optional)

Method

1. Pound or tenderise the chops a little so they are about 1 cm thick. Mix all the marinade ingredients until the sugar dissolves, rub it all over the chops, cover and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
2. Rinse the broken rice until the water runs nearly clear and cook it like jasmine rice (rice cooker or 1:1.2 rice to water, simmered covered for 15 min then rested for 10 min). Broken rice cooks a little faster and stays fluffy.
3. For the scallion oil, heat the oil until hot, pour it over the spring onions and salt in a heatproof bowl and stir; they should sizzle and turn bright green. Make the nước chấm by dissolving the sugar in the warm water, then adding the fish sauce, lime, garlic and chilli.
4. Heat a barbecue or grill pan to medium-high. Grill the chops for 4–5 min per side, until caramelised and charred at the edges and cooked to 63°C (145°F) in the thickest part. Turn the heat down if the sugary marinade starts to burn. Rest for 3 min.
5. Pile rice on each plate, spoon scallion oil over it and add a chop, cucumber, tomato and a fried egg if you like. Serve with nước chấm to pour over everything.

Tips

• No broken rice? Pulse jasmine rice a few times in a blender to crack the grains, or simply use jasmine rice.
• For gluten-free, swap the soy sauce for tamari or more fish sauce.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Vicky Pham Hungry Huy Wok and Kin