Vietnamese Caramelised Pork Bowl

I’ve adapted this superb traditional Vietnamese pork dish, drastically reducing & swapping brown sugar for coconut sugar. Personally, I think it tastes better without so much sugar and still carmalised well. The sweet and salty is perfectly balance and it’s really easy and a super fast dinner. You can swap out the traditional pork for beef, chicken or turkey mince if you like.

I serve in a bowl with coconut rice or cauliflower rice and a huge chopped salad - made up of whatever’s in the garden or fridge & dressed with a sesame oil dressing.

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 30 mins Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 tbls of coconut oil

• 1 medium onion - finely chopped

• 2 inches of fresh ginger - grated/ minced

• 2 cloves of garlic - crushed/minced

• 1 red chili - finely chopped

• 400g of minced pork

• 2 tbls of fish sauce

• 2 tbls of coconut sugar

• A hand full of coriander - chopped

• 2 spring onions - Sliced

for the coconut rice

• 2 cups of jasmine rice

• 1/2 can of Ayam’s coconut milk

• 1.5 cups of filter water

• 1 tsp of Himalayan or sea salt

• 1 tsp of coconut sugar

for the Salad

Chop up whatever you have in the fridge - and combine in a large bowl. Mine usually looks something like this:

• 1 cups each of red & white cabbage - very finely shredded

• 1/4 cucumber - diced

• 1/2 courgette - diced

• 1/2 apple - diced

• 1 carrot - grated

• 1/4 head of broccoli - finely chopped

• 1/8 head of cauliflower - finely chopped

• 1 small bulb of fennel - shaved

• 1/4 red onion - finely chopped

• 1/4 cup of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, black and white sesame, hemp hearts ect)

for the dressing:

Add the following to a clean jar, put on the lid and give it a really good shake.

• 2 tsp of toasted sesame oil

• 2 tbls of macadamia oil

• 1 tbls of lime juice

• 1 tbls of tamari or coconut aminos

• 1 tsp of runny raw honey or maple syrup

Method

• Begin by rinsing the rice until the water runs clear

• In a large pan with a lid, add the rinsed rice, coconut milk, water, salt & coconut sugar

• Bring to the boil, stir and reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cover, cook for 20 minutes

• After 20 minutes, remove from the heat and keep covered until ready to serve.

• Mean while, as rice cooks, in a large frying pan heat the oil over a medium heat

• Add the onion, chili, garlic and cook until they beginning to brown ever so slightly

• Add the pork to the frying pan, Increase the heat to medium high & cook for about 2 minutes, until the pork mince is white, breaking down any lumps

• stir in the fish sauce and sugar then leave to cook for about 2 minutes, until the juices are incorporated & the pork begins to carmalise, then stir and leave again for 30 seconds, repeat this process twice.

• Fluff up the rice with a fork and spoon into a bowl with the dressed chopped salad and the carmalised pork mixture and sprinkle with the spring oinion and corriander.

  Enjoy!