Pal Jalna has a great blog with travel journals, recipes, and photos that have so much joy that Aunty is a Jalna fan.
Recently, she posted about her 9 year old nephew Colin’s Vietnamese Garlic Pork Chop. It was so cute – his handwritten recipe, and looked so ono, Aunty had to try it because it looked easy.
It was harder than it looked and Aunty was missing several ingredients such as chicken powder, shallots, and fresh garlic, so Aunty made do with mushroom powder (Umami from Trader Joes), stalks of green onion, and some old chopped garlic in a bottle in the back of the refrigerator.
Harvesting and using lemon grass was treacherous. That plant is killer because of super fine, super sharp little needle hairs that plunge into the skin, even through surgical gloves. Ouch ouch ouch! To remove those dang prickles after the laborious process of peeling off the hairy leaves from the stalk and chopping into bits, Aunty slathered Elmer’s white glue on arms, hands, wrists, and wherever else came in contact with the plant from hell. After the glue dried, Aunty peeled it off in sheets and pieces. Note to Aunty – freeze the dang lemon grass next time or use something else.
Times Super Market had pork chops on sale for $2.59/lb so for $5.30, Aunty had 4 nice pieces to work with. It was super wonderful to clean the pork chops first with water, vinegar and salt in a large bowl, and then rinse and pat dry. That winner first step made the pork seem almost kosher and less stinky. Great tip, thanks to Colin!
Putting all the other ingredients together after the battle with lemon grass was easy except the Umami powder (as replacement for chicken powder) was so fine and dusty, Aunty had a coughing fit after shaking out a teaspoon of it. Actually, what IS chicken powder?
Aunty kind of coated each chop with the sauce, laid them flat in a single layer, covered them with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for several hours. It was easy to fry them with a bit of oil on medium heat (not too hot or it gets black) and, after plating it, put whatever sauce left in the pan over the pork chops.
It was SO soft, moist, and delicious! Not sure what did it, but it was! Thank you Jalna, thank you Colin! It was a great and successful learning experience.
Here is Colin’s recipe and his broiled version:
looks yummy….chicken powder is chicken bouillon granules..sold in all the markets, usually in a tin, where you find regular bouillon…
Good to know and useful to have! Mahalo, Dd!
HAHAHAHAHAHA! You totally cracking me up, Aunty! Glad you enjoyed it. I loved that tip about washing the pork meat too. I still don’t know what chicken powder is, but it was a brilliant idea for you to use the Trader Joe’s mushroom powder instead. Colin will be so proud when he sees your post.
It was such a good recipe with great moving parts that I had to try it.
Looks good. But too much work. Next time, invite me and David to sample some of that porkchop.
It looked easy but it was a bit of work, especially the first time. Not sure when I will make it again since I am still huuhuu about the dangers of lemon grass.