Caramel Sauce

The Vietnamese caramel sauce looks deceivingly simple to make at home but took me a few tries to perfect. Essentially Vietnamese caramel sauce is heating water saturated with sugar until the sugar burns. As heat is applied, the sugar water mixture turns from opaque to clear to yellow (tea colour) to orange …and if you’re unfortunate, to brown and black. Yup I might have unfortunately screwed up a few times Every recipe that I looked up had a different ratio of sugar to water.

- 1 cup sugar + 1/4 cup of water (then 1/2 cup of water later).
- 2/3 cup sugar + 1/4 cup of water
- 2 Tbsp sugar + 1/4 cup of water

I’m not sure if it was the amount of sugar that made me cringe every time I made this last week to try to get the best sauce but I do prefer using the 2 Tbsp sugar instead of the 1 cup. The more authentic Vietnamese recipes do call for closer to a cup though. So it depends on your taste! I also figured out how easy it is to burn the sugar and how unpleasant the burnt sauce taste is.

1. Place sugar and water into a pot on medium heat.
2. Stir until sugar dissolves.
3. The water will boil and bubble. Keep watching (takes about 15 minutes).
4. You will see the water start turning yellow to orange as the sugar carmelizes.
5. At this point, be careful because it can turn brown and black quickly. As soon as it turns orange-brown and some smoke starts rising, turn off the heat and slowly pour in 1/2 cup of water. You don’t want the sauce to be too thick or too thin. Some people pour in boiling water but there’ll be a surprisingly big reaction when you do that.

Now that is your Vietnamese caramel sauce for any braising needs you have. You can pour the rest in a jar and store in your fridge indefinitely. The sauce will thicken as it cools. Remember that this is NOT how to make regular caramel sauce and by no means should you eat this with ice cream or other desserts, it’ll taste bittersweet and terrible

If you don’t want to venture off to burn…er… caramelize your own sugar, you can find the sauce in grocery stores usually called Coconut Caramel Sauce. Also, I found that when I bought frozen catfish from Vietnam, it came with a package of pre-made sauce!

Claypot

Also the other thing that is special about Vietnamese braising technique is the use of the claypot. When my grandmother braises meat, they just use a metal pot sitting on low heat for a few hours. I’ve never owned a claypot and never knew how to cook with one so I bought one and learned how to use it! Unfortunately, I won’t be smashing my claypot at every meal like at Com Nieu but maybe one day!

When cooking with claypots, there are special handling instructions you need to follow. Claypots, by the nature of their material, are porous and absorb everything. The idea of cooking with a claypot is to soak it in water for at least 30 minutes so that later when heat is applied, the pot will release the water as steam which will cook the food.

Another property of claypots is that it is very sensitive to sudden temperature changes. Putting a (room temperature or cold) claypot into a pre-heated hot oven might cause the claypot to crack. Hence, no pre-heating of the oven is needed for claypot braising. The pot and the stove must start out at the same temperature and heated together. Also, remember this when taking out the claypot from the oven to not place it on a cold surface but on a cloth or towel first (for the same reasons).

Lastly, don’t use detergent to clean the claypots because it’ll will also just get soaked into the claypot themselves. The thought of a my braised pork belly steamed with dishwashing detergent does not sound appealing at all. I use salt and water to clean my claypot instead.

Alright, other than the sauce and the claypot handling instructions, I discovered that this dish is really easy to make. It is also quite tasty. As for the recipe for the crispy rice in a claypot as shown at Com Nieu in Anthony Bourdain’s video, I have yet to make that! You’ll have to stay tuned for that recipe.

Summary of Claypot Pork Belly and Egg

Preparation Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 1 hour
Servings: 4
Cost: $5
Meal type: Main

Recipe Rating:  

Ingredients

• 2 hardboiled eggs
• 1 lb pork belly (or pork shoulder or pork butt – essentially any piece of pork with a layer of fat still in tact). Cut up into 2 inch chunks.
• 1 shallot
• 3 Tbsp of caramel sauce
• 3 Tbsp of fish sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Make sure that claypot was soaked in water before you prepare this dish.
2. Put pork, eggs, shallots into claypot.
It is always a struggle for me to fit everything I want in there. I cut the eggs in half.
3. In a separate bowl, combine caramel sauce, fish sauce, salt and pepper to mix.
4. Pour mixture into claypot.
5. Put claypot into oven and set to 400 degrees. Bake for 45 min.

If you don’t have a claypot, you can also do this on low heat on your stove top.

Results

This dish is so easy and tasty. I like to eat it with rice, cucumber or pickled bean sprouts. Also feel free to use any other meats – fish, chicken, beef will all work. Eggplant or tofu would taste good too.