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Lemongrass Pork Herbs Eggs

Vietnamese

Intro:

This method of marinating and cooking pork chops is extremely common throughout Vietnam. This dish is often served with herbs, eggs and rice. This is an extremely simple dish to create but the flavour remains so complex. The secret to making this dish is to leave it to marinade over night and not overcook the pork. Let’s get straight into it!

Method:

1. Start by making the marinade, in a large bowl finely chop and add 3 lemongrass stalks, 6 garlic cloves, 2 shallots and 1 red chilli. Now add 2 tbsps palm sugar, the zest of 1 lime, 1 tbsp black pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp smoked paprika, 60ml of fish sauce and 60 ml of rapeseed oil. Mix all the ingredients well to dissolve the palm sugar then place the marinade to one side.

2. Now onto the pork chops, begin by making small cuts into the fat side of the pork chops, this will ensure when cooking, that the pork doesn’t fold and stays nice and flat. When ready use a meat tenderiser (or a rolling pin) to flatten out the pork chops. Repeat this process on both sides until the pork becomes slightly flatter.

3. When the pork is ready, add all of the chops to the marinade and massage the marinade into the pork. Allow the pork chops to marinade overnight if possible however you could do this 4 hours before cooking.

4. Before we are ready to cook the pork we can prepare all the remaining ingredients, for the salad, slice cucumber and carrot into a julienne then place into a pickle made up of 2 tbsp sugar, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, juice of 1 lime, 1/4 cup of water and a pinch of salt. Allow to pickle for at least 30 minutes. For the rest of the salad wash and roughly chop the mint, coriander, spring onions, shallot and beansprouts. When the salad is prepared place into a bowl and set to one side.

5. Finally prepare the fried shallots, simply slice thinly lengthways then fry in cooking oil at 180°c until golden brown. When ready remove the shallots from the oil and drain onto kitchen paper. Season with a pinch of sugar and salt and set aside.

6. To cook the pork the best way would be to bbq, however if that is not an option then you could simply shallow fry or grill. Remove the pork chops from the marinade and place into a pan on a high heat with a drizzle of oil. Depending on the thickness of the pork chops these should take roughly 2 1/2 minutes each side or cook until the meat nearest to the bone reaches 60°c. When the pork is nice and charred place the pork onto a chopping board and cover with kitchen foil allowing to rest for 5-10 minutes.

7. Whilst we are waiting on the pork chops to rest, for a quick sauce add all of the remaining marinade to a pan and bring up to the boil. When at boiling point add 1 cup of water to the sauce and reduce, skimming to remove any impurities that rise to the top.
8. Now to serve, fry eggs in a pan however you prefer them to be cooked then put the fried eggs onto a plate then place the pork over the top. Drizzle over the reduced sauce and scatter over the fried shallots. Serve with the salad and pickled vegetables on the side with a bowl of freshly cooked rice or rice noodles. Hope you like this super simple recipe!

Additional notes

This recipe also works great with chicken breast although I would definitely recommend grilling on a bbq. As for the pork chops you could also use pork shoulder or even pork fillet although the cooking times would vary…Have fun playing around with this recipe!

Ingredients

To serve 4:
 
4 pork chops
4 eggs
2 spring onions
5 shallots
bunch of coriander
bunch of mint
bunch of beansprouts
1 lime
 
Pickled vegetables:
2 carrots
1/2 cucumber
2 tbsps sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup water
juice of 1 lime
salt
 
Marinade:
3 lemongrass stalks
6 garlic cloves
2 shallots
1 red chilli
2 tbsp palm sugar
zest of 1 lime
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp smoked paprika
60ml fish sauce
60ml rapeseed oil