Caramelized Pork and Beef Bowls
Zach has a name for this one. He calls it “that spicy meat thing. With the rice.” It’s not exactly menu language, but when he asks for it by that name, I know what’s going on the grocery list.
I’m in a Facebook cooking group, and a friend of mine recommended this recipe there. I looked it up, saw it came from RecipeTin Eats, and realized I’d already cooked a few of Nagi Maehashi’s recipes and enjoyed every one of them. So I made it. Zach loved it. And that was pretty much that.
The original is Nagi’s Vietnamese Caramelised Pork Bowls. The idea underneath it (meat cooked hard with sugar and fish sauce until it goes dark and sticky at the edges) comes out of Vietnamese cooking, and her version is a weeknight take on that. What I make now isn’t traditional, and honestly it’s not really hers anymore either. I followed her recipe the first time, then started fiddling, and these days I make it by feel and memory. So the credit goes to Vietnamese cooks and to Nagi, and the liberties are all mine.
Nagi’s recipe uses a pound of ground pork. I use half pork and half beef, a pound of each, with everything else doubled. When I really mean business, I double that and make four pounds in my big 12-inch Lodge cast iron skillet. Four pounds sounds like a lot until you do the math: Zach eats about 6 ounces of meat per sitting and I eat 3, so four pounds is about seven meals’ worth for the two of us. That’s dinner plus a couple of lunches for each of us, or an extra dinner for Zach on Thursdays when I have a standing dinner date, or any combination of the above. And that leaves out Zach’s heavy lifting days, when I’ve come downstairs to find him eating it right out of the container, standing in front of the fridge. (Those are the days the planned lunch leftovers give way to a quick turkey or tuna salad sandwich!)
I cut the sugar. Doubled, her recipe would be 10 tablespoons of brown sugar for two pounds of meat, and I use about 6. Nagi warns that less sugar means slower caramelizing, and she’s right, since the sugar is what does the browning. Give it a little more time in the pan and it gets there. The four-pound batch works too, but it needs to sit a little longer and get stirred a few more times before the caramelization makes it all the way through. If your skillet is smaller than 12 inches, make two 2-pound batches instead.
The fresh Thai chili is in her recipe as optional, and I don’t often have one on hand, so Huy Fong chili garlic sauce covers for it. Of course it’s Huy Fong. A heaping tablespoon, and I mean a real tablespoon out of the silverware drawer, not a measuring spoon. The onion, ginger, and garlic all stay.
The fish sauce is Red Boat, and sometimes I throw in a splash of soy with the fish sauce and sugar. Lemongrass shows up only when I happen to have it, which isn’t often. Nagi lists it as optional too, so I don’t feel too bad about that one.
Rice goes in first. Ours is Mahatma basmati, not the jasmine Nagi suggests, because that’s what’s in my pantry. Then the meat, then quick-pickled baby cucumbers, sliced radish, carrot, and a big handful of green onion over the top. Then a squeeze of lime, or a wedge on the side.
The cukes aren’t decoration. I like to offset the heat of the meat with cukes, and a quick pickle makes them cold, sharp, and crunchy against something sweet, salty, and spicy. The pickle is eyeballed: enough rice vinegar to come about halfway up the slices, a splash of soy, water the rest of the way, about a teaspoon of sugar, and a couple pinches of salt, then into the fridge. The radishes and carrots stay raw and do the same job with more bite. Every bowl gets cukes and radishes, which means a bag of radishes and a pack of baby cucumbers are on the list every time this is on the menu.
Everything gets sliced thin on a mandoline, and I wear a cut-proof glove to do it. Baby cucumbers and radishes are fiddly little things, and I’d like to keep all my fingertips, thank you.
The trick to the meat, and it really is the only trick, is leaving it alone. I don’t drain it after it browns. Once the sugar, fish sauce, and chili garlic sauce go in, you let the juices cook off and you don’t stir. The pan does the work. Stir, leave it again, and do that a few times until it’s as dark and caramelized as you want it. If you stir it constantly, you get sad gray meat in sauce, and nobody named a dish after that.
And yes, there’s a whole fish sauce story coming down the road (it involves ketchup, and it’s a good one). When it does, it’ll point back here.
So that’s it. That’s the spicy meat thing. With the rice.
Caramelized Pork and Beef Bowls
Ingredients
The meat
- 1 Tbsp neutral oil just to get the onions going
- 1 onion finely diced
- 4 tsp ginger grated or minced
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 lb ground beef
- 6 Tbsp packed brown sugar about
- 4 Tbsp Red Boat fish sauce
- soy sauce a splash, optional
- 1 heaping Tbsp Huy Fong chili garlic sauce a real spoon, not a measuring spoon
- 2 stalks lemongrass white part only, very finely chopped (optional)
The quick-pickled cukes
- 1 pack baby cucumbers thinly sliced on a mandoline
- rice vinegar enough to come about halfway up the slices
- soy sauce a splash
- water to cover
- 1 tsp sugar about
- 2 pinches salt a couple
The bowls
- Mahatma basmati rice cooked
- radishes thinly sliced on a mandoline
- carrots thinly sliced on a mandoline, raw
- green onions sliced
- lime wedges for squeezing over or serving on the side
Instructions
- Put the sliced cucumbers in a container, add rice vinegar about halfway up the slices, a splash of soy, and water the rest of the way to cover. Add the sugar and salt, give it a stir, and put it in the fridge so it has time to sit while everything else cooks.1 pack baby cucumbers, rice vinegar, soy sauce, water, 1 tsp sugar, 2 pinches salt
- Start the rice.Mahatma basmati rice
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and the lemongrass if you’re using it, and cook for about 2 minutes.1 Tbsp neutral oil, 1 onion, 4 tsp ginger, 4 garlic cloves, 2 stalks lemongrass
- Add the pork and beef and cook, breaking it up, until it’s no longer pink. Don’t drain it.1 lb ground pork, 1 lb ground beef
- Add the brown sugar, fish sauce, soy if you’re using it, and the chili garlic sauce all at once.6 Tbsp packed brown sugar, 4 Tbsp Red Boat fish sauce, soy sauce, 1 heaping Tbsp Huy Fong chili garlic sauce
- Now leave it alone. Let the juices cook off until the meat starts to caramelize on the bottom. Stir, then leave it again. Repeat a few times until it’s as dark and sticky as you like.
- Build the bowls: rice, then meat, then the cukes, radish, and carrot alongside, with green onions over the top. Squeeze lime over it, or serve each bowl with a wedge on the side.Mahatma basmati rice, radishes, carrots, green onions, lime wedges
Notes
- DO NOT stir constantly. The caramelizing happens while the meat sits. Stirring is how you end up with sad gray meat in sauce.
- About the sugar. Nagi’s recipe has more, and she warns that cutting it slows the browning. At 6 tablespoons for two pounds it still gets there; it just needs a little more time in the pan.
- The chili garlic sauce stands in for the fresh Thai chili in the original. A heaping real tablespoon is what I use. Measure with your heart.
- Fish sauce. I use Red Boat. If you’ve only got another brand, use it.
- Doubling it. Four pounds works in a 12-inch cast iron skillet (mine’s a Lodge). Leave it a little longer between stirs and stir a few more times so the caramelization goes all the way through the batch. If your skillet is smaller, make two 2-pound batches.
- Half batch. Use a pound of meat total (half and half, or all pork like the original) and halve everything else.
- Use a cut-proof glove on the mandoline. Baby cukes and radishes get small fast, and that last inch is where fingertips go missing.
- Lunches. This is a batch recipe on purpose. It covers lunches for both of us for the next couple of days (assuming Zach hasn’t found it first), so keep the cukes and radishes separate and add them when you build each bowl.
P.S. Yes, I still have dinner with my ex-husband on Thursdays. Zach is fine with it.
P.P.S. I tell Zach the actual name of this dish every single time, and he nods and says, “Yeah, the spicy meat thing with the rice.” (Sometimes it’s the spicy pork thing.) I will never give up trying to get him to use the real name. He will never use the real name.