A simply
incredible-tasting Vietnamese peasant dish. Every restaurant I've had it in seems to refer to it as "Spices Pork" rather than "Spiced Pork". My guess is this is a
literal translation from the Vietnamese name of the
recipe. I don't speak Vietnamese, so I can't be sure.
It sure does taste good, no matter what it's called.
Ingredients:
1 pound pork tenderloin
2 shallots
2 tbsp nuoc mam
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
3 tbsp Vietnamese chili sauce
3 tbsp water
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp olive oil
Slice shallot and pork very thin. The thinner the better. Mix all ingredients. Add to a pottery pot (a baking dish will do fine for heathens). Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes. Serve with jasmine rice.I often sub onion + garlic for the shallot, since my local supermarket has such pitiful shallots. The flavor doesn't seem to suffer much for the substitution. Note also that I never have any brown sugar in my cupboard, I just make it to taste by adding the appropriate amount of molasses to plain old white sugar.