Thing a day - Vietnamese

Well, you ask a cook to do a Thing a Day, and most of the time you'll get food.

Originally seen on the David Lebovitz blog, the recipe is braised pork ribs done in a Vietnamese style. As per David's recommendations, I added fresh ginger, and some red pepper flakes. Oh man these are good. Rich color, slip right off the bone, and even better the next day. Plenty of goopy sauce to add to brown rice.

Best to chill the whole batch to skim off some of the fat. I picked my ribs up at Smart n' Final. An inexpensive way to get a whole slab.

The slowest part of the recipe is waiting for the sugar to caramelize to just the right color.

And boy did the house smell of fish sauce, even when I closed the kitchen door and opened the windows. Not a bad smell, just pungent. Easy cleanup too, since all the cooking was done in 1 pot, from the caramelizing, to the braising. I used one of my Grandmothers huge old enameled cast iron pots.









Ribs just added Ribs almost done