Just 5 ingredients for melt-in-your-mouth goodness!

Growing up in Vietnam, my family was very poor and so we didn’t have many opportunities to enjoy meat. My father was a fisherman and we always had a lot of fish, but pork, beef, chicken or duck - anything my mum would have to buy - were things we would have very rarely as we just couldn’t afford them.

Even when Mum could afford pork she would buy just 200 grams for our family of six! And never pork belly, only ever the cheaper cuts like pork neck. But even with four hungry kids to feed, my Mum could turn this small amount of meat into a delicious meal to fill our bellies.

I always loved the smell of my Mum’s kitchen when she would make this caramelised pork! Right at the end she would add chopped garlic to the pan and the whole house would be filled with the yummy smell!

I remember, my younger brother and I would fight about who got to eat the sauce left in the pan. We’d scape it out with pieces of cucumber or put some steamed rice in the pan and stir it all about to pick up the sauce stuck to the sides of the pan. We called it fried rice caramel pork although there was no pork, it was only rice and sauce, but so yummy!

Since starting my food truck here in Australia, my caramelised pork belly and rice has always been a big hit wherever I travel to and with Trang Hue Caramelised Sauce it is so easy to make this tasty treat at home.

All you do is cook slices of pork belly in a pan, browning them on both sides, then add water and the Caramelised Sauce. When the sauce thickens, add a little sliced garlic, cook for a final minute, then serve. It’s so easy!

But remember when you add the sauce, don’t move away from the pan! The caramel can go from ready to burnt very quickly, so you need to stay put!

You can also substitute the pork with chicken - caramelised chicken wings are very yummy and very popular in Hue. You will find them on the menu in almost every restaurant in the city.

Sometimes I will even use prawns or fish. One of my favourite quick dinners is to cook salmon in the airfryer and then make my caramel sauce in a pan with garlic and chilli and finish the salmon in the sauce.

Serve your caramelised pork/chicken/prawns/fish with rice and salad or vegetables, and make sure to have cucumber to dip in the leftover sauce. Even after a full day’s work in the food truck I can’t help myself and just have to dip cucumber in the leftover caramelised sauce - and my brother isn’t there to beat me to it!