Caramelized Pork and Beef Bowls
Ground pork and beef cooked hard with brown sugar, Red Boat fish sauce, and chili garlic sauce until it goes dark and sticky, over rice with quick-pickled cukes, radish, and carrot. Based on Nagi Maehashi's Vietnamese Caramelised Pork Bowls at RecipeTin Eats; my version is doubled, uses half beef, and isn't traditional.
Servings: 4 to 6 servings (about 3½ meals for two at our house)
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.