Trung Kho (Braised Eggs)

Forget the chicken (ga). Forget the pork (heo). Who needs either of those when you could have the cheapest, easiest comfort known to man Trung Kho?

For those not in the know, this is a traditional, Vietnamese comfort food traditionally made with pork and eggs braised in fish sauce and sugar. These are the two main ingredients. Depending on the person, water or Coco Rico or coconut juice might be added to it so that the sauce mixture might gradually simmer down from covering the meat to half (or less depending on your preferences or how absent-minded you might be). There is no right or wrong way to go about this dish. It's easily customizable, since it has so few ingredients.

Not fond of pork? Trade in pork for chicken.

Imminently lazy and wanting a cheap comfort? Forget the chicken or pork. Just have eggs!

At home, FS will generally just eat the eggs regardless of whether chicken or pork is involved. The albumen of the eggs turn from white to a light brown, absorbing the sauce to a salty, fish saucy degree. 

(FS isn't the only one who likes this, Wandering Chopsticks published Carmen Cook's input of "...was really pleased with how it came out... I’m not a big meat-eater, and my favorite part of this dish were the eggs. While the meat was good – fall apart tender and flavorful – I would have been happy to just have the eggs.")

This is a great alternative to cooking eggs the usual way (sunny side up, scrambled, frittata-ed). FS probably isn't the only one whose eyes are drawn to one dozen or one and a half dozen carton of eggs under two dollars... and, yet, what to do with all those eggs? This is a conundrum for one family let alone one person. But voila! Trung Kho pops into being (or Ga Kho Trung or Heo Kho Trung).

In fact, the longer the eggs sit in the sauce in your refrigerator, the better they taste. The eggs absorb the sauce during the one hour to one and a half simmer, but also absorb the sauce further over the course of a week, bathing in the sauce and becoming all the more delicious because of that.

10 eggs dedicated to a numeric system based in 10ths.

Trung Kho

10-12 hard-boiled eggs

2-3 c. water

1/4 c. nuoc mam (fish sauce)

1 tbsp. sesame oil

1-2 tsp. soy sauce

1/2 tsp. sugar

Set stove at medium heat. (FS uses a stove with heat as numbers from 0-10 and chooses 7.)

Let sugar caramellize i.e. forget about the sugar on the stove pot until it smokes and turns dark brown. While this occurs, peel the hard-boiled eggs from their stubborn shell (trick: place them in cold water, the cold water will seep into the cracks of the egg shell introducing water pressure between the shell and the egg, making it easier to peel the shell from the egg).

Smoke! Race to pot and fill it half with water. Add in nuoc mam, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Add in eggs.

Simmer for one hour to one half hour. Add more water as need be (depending on sauce quantity preferences).

As evidenced by the picture below, FS forgot about the simmering eggs for quite some time. No biggie, as long as the sauce doesn't disappear complete and the eggs burn. 

Serve with rice.

Reuse your spaghetti sauce jars.

This is probably the habit of every cook: eat your own imperfections before people notice. So that broken egg with its gaping mouth speaks to the Food Scavenger. Eat me, the gash declares, eat me nooooow.