

This refreshing main course dinner, Vietnamese Pork in Tomato Sauce with Nuoc Cham dipping sauce seems spring-like to me. Warm rice on a bed of lettuce and fresh herbs, topped with a tomato based meat sauce. The nuoc cham is sprinkled on at the table and the fresh flavours of Vietnamese cuisine are in every bite.
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Adapted from a beautiful coffee table cookbook, The Foods of Vietnam by Nicole Routhier, she describes this as the Vietnamese interpretation of spaghetti and meat sauce.
Fresh herbs and fish sauce are essential for Vietnamese and Thai cuisines. Fish sauce is the secret ingredient since it seems to be used in every dish yet the final taste can be completely different from one dish to the next. Nuoc cham is the dipping sauce you may recognize by taste, that is made of fish sauce, rice vinegar and lime juice. It takes only five minutes to make and will keep in your fridge for weeks or even months. In this dish the nuoc cham is sprinkled on at the table.
If you are new to cooking Vietnamese or Thai foods, or need a vegan option, check out these posts:
Do you like the idea of cooking once, and eating twice? This recipe already makes two meals for two people but sometimes I make a double recipe of the meat sauce and freeze half of it. If I have a jar of nuoc cham in the fridge then this is a quick and easy dinner. If you need a reminder to use up all those jars in your fridge just add a label to the sauce that reads “for Viet Pork & Tom Sauce”. You can also use the sauce for these two recipes.
I can’t say enough about the benefits of wok cooking, you really should own one. A standard flat bottom wok isn’t expensive, will last for years and is ideal for more than Asian dishes. You can cook this sauce in any frying pan or Dutch oven, but the wok is perfect. The large surface area of a wok is the key to stir-frying and it’s shape, a small base with a large top, makes it perfect for deep-frying. Once you have a wok you’ll find all sorts of ways to use it.
Let me know in the comments below if you tried this dish and what you thought.
NUOC CHAM |
2 cloves of garlic, crushed |
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes |
2 Tbsp sugar |
2 Tbsp lime juice |
¼ cup rice vinegar |
¼ cup fish sauce |
¼ cup warm water |
SALAD |
1 small head of lettuce, cut into fairly small pieces or shredded |
4 green onions, thinly sliced |
½ cup chopped mint leaves |
1 cup chopped cilantro |
PORK-TOMATO SAUCE |
2 Tbsp vegetable oil |
1 pound ground pork |
1 Tbsp sugar |
3 Tbsp Vietnamese fish sauce (divided) |
6 garlic cloves, chopped |
1 large onion, slivered |
28 oz can diced tomatoes, with juice |
½ cup chicken broth or water |
2 Tbsp tomato paste |
freshly ground pepper |
Ingredients |
Directions |
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