How to Make Vietnamese Braised Pork with Fermented Shrimp Paste
To make braised pork with fermented shrimp paste delicious, it’s essential to use authentic shrimp paste and include sugar, lemongrass, and chili. This dish pairs excellently with steamed rice, green bananas, starfruit, and fresh herbs.
Ingredients
- 500g pork belly
- 4 tablespoons shrimp paste
- 5 stalks lemongrass
- 5-6 cloves garlic
- 3-4 shallots
- 1 small piece of ginger
- 1-2 bird’s eye chilies
- 1 stalk green onion
- Seasonings: Sugar, fish sauce, MSG, ground pepper, caramel sauce
Ingredient Notes
Shrimp paste is made from tiny shrimp, used as a dipping sauce and seasoning in various braised dishes and stir-fries. It's different from shrimp sauce, being more aromatic and easier to eat, without the pungency of shrimp sauce.
There are various types of shrimp paste depending on the production area, such as Hue, Da Nang, or Southern Vietnam shrimp paste. At Cookbeo, we find Hue shrimp paste to be the most flavorful and aromatic. Southern shrimp paste tends to be sweeter. The average price of Hue shrimp paste is around 80,000 VND per kilogram.
Da Nang Shrimp Paste
Instructions
Prepare the Pork
Rub the pork belly with coarse salt, rinse well, and let it drain. Cut the pork into bite-sized pieces, about 1.5 cm thick. For this dish, avoid cutting the pork too large as you would for caramelized pork (thịt kho tàu). Smaller pieces will absorb the seasoning better.
After cutting, marinate the pork with 1 teaspoon of fish sauce, 1 teaspoon of ground pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of MSG, and 1/2 tablespoon of caramel sauce. Mix well and let the pork absorb the seasoning for about 20-30 minutes.
You can either buy caramel sauce or learn how to make it yourself from Cookbeo's guide.
Prepare Other Ingredients
Place 4 tablespoons of shrimp paste into a small bowl, fill the bowl almost to the top with water, stir well, and then strain to extract the liquid. This process removes any sediment, making the dish smoother to eat.
Peel off the tough outer layers of the lemongrass, rinse, crush, and finely mince it.
Peel and mince the garlic and shallots. Clean the ginger, crush, and mince it.
Wash and finely chop the bird’s eye chilies and other types of chilies you may use.
You can use a food processor to roughly chop the garlic, shallots, chilies, lemongrass, and ginger together.
Clean and chop the green onions into small pieces. These will be sprinkled over the dish after cooking.
Cook the Braised Pork with Shrimp Paste
Heat 4 tablespoons of cooking oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, sauté 2/3 of the minced garlic, shallots, chilies, lemongrass, and ginger until fragrant, then add the pork belly and stir-fry over high heat.
Stir-fry the pork until it becomes firm and slightly browned, then pour in the strained shrimp paste liquid and bring the mixture to a boil. Season to taste with MSG and sugar.
As mentioned earlier, the saltiness of shrimp paste can vary, so adjust the seasoning to your preference. Since shrimp paste is salty, balance it with the right amount of sugar. For example, if using 4 tablespoons of shrimp paste, add about 5-6 tablespoons of sugar (adjust according to taste) and 1 teaspoon of MSG.
Continue to braise the pork over medium-low heat, allowing the liquid to simmer gently for about 25-30 minutes so the pork absorbs the flavors and becomes tender.
Once the braised pork with shrimp paste thickens and the sauce is reduced, add the remaining minced garlic, shallots, ginger, lemongrass, and chilies, stir well, and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Adding these ingredients at the end enhances their flavor, making the dish more aromatic.
After about 10 minutes, adjust the seasoning if necessary, sprinkle some ground pepper, stir quickly, and turn off the heat. At this stage, if you want the pork to have a thicker sauce and a beautiful reddish-brown color, increase the heat and stir quickly for about 15 seconds.
Transfer the pork to a serving plate, sprinkle chopped green onions on top, and serve hot.
Final Product Requirements
Video
Alternative Method
For this dish, you can either braise the pork or, if short on time, make stir-fried pork with shrimp paste. If you opt for stir-frying, after adding the shrimp paste and seasonings, stir-fry the pork over high heat until it becomes slightly charred and flavorful. The braising method takes longer, but the pork absorbs the seasonings better, resulting in a more flavorful dish that can be stored for longer.
