Thit kho, pork braised in coconut water for Tet
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Thit kho is the pot a southern family cooks before Tet and eats for a week. Pork belly and eggs turn darker each day in caramel and coconut water.
What is in the pot?
Pork belly cut into squares of 4 or 5 cm, and hard-boiled eggs, usually 8 to 12 of them. The braise is fish sauce, sugar cooked to a dark caramel, shallot, pepper and enough young coconut water to cover.
Nothing else goes in. The dish has no aromatic scaffolding of the kind bo kho is built on, and that is the point. It tastes of pork, fish sauce and time. Three or four hours at a bare simmer turn the fat clear and the eggs the colour of tea. A Tet pot is built from 2 to 3 kg of belly and a dozen eggs.
Why does it belong to Tet?
Because a kitchen closes for the new year and a household still has to eat. The pot is made large deliberately, kept on the stove and reheated. It improves for two or three days as the pork takes up more of the sauce.
A symbolic reading comes with it in most families. The square pork and the round egg stand for earth and sky, the pairing that also explains the shape of the Tet rice cakes. The Tet guide covers what else the week involves and why almost everything is shut.
| What | Thit kho tau (south) | Thit kho tieu (north and centre) |
|---|---|---|
| Liquid | Coconut water, plenty | Almost none, cooked down |
| Colour | Amber, pale | Dark, almost black |
| Eggs | Nearly always | Rarely |
| Dominant flavour | Sweet, mellow | Black pepper |
| Eaten with | Rice and pickled sprouts | Rice, and it is saltier |
What is nuoc mau, and why is it bitter?
Nuoc mau is sugar melted and taken past caramel to the edge of burning, then stopped with water. Pulled off too early it makes the dish sweet and pale. Taken to the right shade it gives colour and a faint bitterness that keeps the pork from cloying.
Every braise in the Vietnamese kitchen that comes out mahogany owes it to this, from fish in a clay pot to com tam pork. It is the single technique that most separates a home cook who is good at kho from one who is not.
What goes on the table with it?
Rice, first, and then something sharp. Dua gia is the standard partner in the south: bean sprouts, chives and carrot pickled for a day. A plate of it disappears faster than the pork does.
A clear soup usually sits alongside, often canh chua in a southern house. A Vietnamese meal is a set of shared dishes around rice rather than a plate each. The rice dishes guide explains how that table is put together.
Where do you eat it as a visitor?
At a com binh dan, the rice shops with trays behind glass where you point at what you want. Thit kho is almost always one of the trays and among the cheapest. A plate of rice with it and a vegetable runs 30,000 to 50,000 dong, a little over a dollar at 26,000 dong to the dollar.
Restaurants aimed at visitors rarely bother with it, which is a fair signal. This is what people eat at home and at work, and the cheap eating guide covers how to order at a counter like that.
Is it the same as Chinese red-braised pork?
Related and not the same. Both are pork belly braised in a dark, sweet, soy or fish-sauce base, and the family resemblance is obvious. Hong shao rou leans on soy sauce, rice wine and star anise.
Thit kho tau drops the soy for fish sauce, the wine for coconut water, and the anise for nothing at all. The word tau in the name does point at China, and what the dish actually is is the Vietnamese answer to it.
When is it worth cooking rather than ordering?
If you are in Vietnam over the new year and are invited to a house, this is the pot that will be on the stove. It is worth asking about. Outside Tet it is an everyday tray at a rice shop and there is no reason to seek it out specially.
Coconut water is the ingredient to be careful with at home. It must be young coconut rather than the sweetened drink in a carton, or the pot comes out syrupy.
FAQ
What is thit kho?
Thit kho is pork belly braised slowly in caramel and fish sauce until the fat turns translucent. The southern version, thit kho tau, adds coconut water and hard-boiled eggs, and it is the dish a family cooks in a large pot for Tet.
Why is thit kho eaten at Tet?
Because it keeps. A big pot braised before the holiday is reheated over several days while the kitchen is closed and the family is visiting, and the square shape of the pork with the round egg is read as earth and sky together.
What is the difference between thit kho tau and thit kho tieu?
Coconut water and eggs against black pepper. The southern thit kho tau is pale, sweet and soupy enough to spoon over rice; the northern and central thit kho tieu is dry, dark and heavily peppered, cooked down until the sauce clings.
What is served with thit kho?
Plain rice, and pickled bean sprouts almost always. Dua gia, bean sprouts and chives pickled sharp, is there to cut the fat, and a bowl of clear soup usually sits on the same table.
Is the caramel sweet?
Less than it sounds. Nuoc mau is sugar taken past the point of sweetness until it is bitter and dark, then loosened with water, and its job is colour and depth rather than sugar. The sweetness in the southern pot comes from coconut water instead.
Can you order thit kho in a restaurant?
Yes, at any com binh dan counter, where it is one of the trays behind the glass and among the cheapest things to point at. It is home cooking rather than restaurant cooking, so a rice shop is where to meet it rather than a place with a menu.