In my increasingly desperate attempts to find something new to cook I happened upon this creation in the Good Food Magazine. I doubt it’s very Vietnamese but sweet and meat are usually a good combo.
It occured to me; would a food blogger in Vietnam be interested in recreating a classic English roast beef dinner? Do Mexican food bloggers try making Spotted Dick when they get sick of quesadillas? Something tells me they don’t. Don’t get sick of quesadillas and don’t try making Spotted Dick. I don’t know whether many of you have tried Spotted Dick, it’s not worth the trouble really.
If I had kept up my series of ‘Quick & Easy’ recipes, this would have made it into that category. But I didn’t; lets just say this is quick. And easy.
Get a decentish bit of pork and make sure you remove most of the fat.
- 1lb pork shoulder, cut into bite size pieces
- 3 shallots, finely chopped
- 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated or finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, grated
- 1 red chilli, chopped (remove the seeds if you don’t like too much heat)
- 3 oz brown sugar
- 1-2 tbsp fish sauce, depending on preference (it’s salty)
- 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
- 4 spring onions, cut in half and then sliced lengthways
First off fry the pork in batches in a little oil to brown.
Remove from the wok and set aside.
Add the shallot, chilli, garlic and ginger to the wok and cook for a few mins. Add the sugar and about 1/4 pint of water.
Add the pork back to the wok and cook, stirring until the sauce starts to boil.
Now add some chilli sauce.
This brand was a no-brainer for me. I mean ‘Healthy Boy’. It’s like they modelled it on my lifestyle.
Anyway. Serve with rice and Pak Choy. Only Pak Choy seems to have done one at my local super-duper-market. I had to slum it with some cut-price Choi Sum.
It’s like really tall, really thin, really crunchy pak choy. Didn’t like it.
But I’d say this was seriously nice. The chilli and the fish sauce to cut through the sweetness; it’s seriously good. My wine pairing? Wine, white.
Yummy!!! Quick and easy – my kind of meals 🙂
Spotted Dick…sounds about as appetizing as Beaver Tails or Blueberry Grunt…which are both surprisingly delicious!
I’m going to have to check out Blueberry Grunt. I might do a sequence of dishes with weird names. Thanks for the idea!
That would be awesome 🙂 Blueberry Grunt is a typical east coast dessert:
http://www.selectnovascotia.ca/recipes/blueberry-grunt
I used to be a server years ago and always hated saying the dessert special when it was Blueberry Grunt. Non-east coasters were always so turned off!!
Oh oh this looks amazing! I miss pork 😦
It may well be that it misses you too!?
I have a feeling the Vietnamese are doing too many roast beef dinners but you never know…maybe they kill a water buffalo for special occasions. This does look easy enough and tasty although I guess you’re steering us away from the choi sum. That’s ok because I don’t know what either of those ingredients are. Are they something like celery?
Like a cross between celery and lettuce. Its quite nice in stir fries.
Oh yum!!!! Now this looks like something I want to fix and eat…thank you!
Do it. Do it now. It’s even good cold!
Sounds like a plan. On my menu for this weekend.
I ate some for breakfast, yes breakfast…
Impressive wok skills.
I can do the toss thing like they do in Hong Kong street markets. Well sort of, makes a bit of a mess sometimes
Great post. I can see them in Mexico now trying to get the raisins.
It would be good to see a spicy spotted dick. Or something like that anyway
Mmm…Vietnamese health food that tastes good 🙂
Its all good. I mean sweet meat where is the harm in that!
Nothing whatsoever 🙂
This looks incredible. I wish I had some for dinner already made! 🙂
And for a change it took mins rather than hours to make!