Boiled Eggs, 3-layered Pork & Brown Sweet Sauce

It’s a dish you can find in a traditional Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao house–among many I’m sure.

I wanted to learn how to make it for a while so since coming back to America, I waited for my Mum to make it. Last night we had this: “ka thohm kim” – translates to something like boiled/salty, albeit it’s more sweet than salty; a part of the process to make it requires frying/liquidating sugar.

We were sharing stories and I told my Mum how in Cambodia, whenever I had this dish it mostly was sold with bones, a shred of meat, and one egg. It was mostly sauce and one egg. My Mum said that’s how it is; meat is expensive. Even if you purchase just the special 3-layered pork (a large layer of skin and fat, and then meat), it adds up with a big family.

 

That’s why my family has it rarely… it’s fatty, has lots of sugar, and lots of meat. But it’s interesting to be southeast Asian, and a returned PCV from southeast Asia, because we have so many similar dishes. But I came back seeing quite a difference in the same dish I’ve had growing up.

When I had dinner with family, I made sure I had lots of vegetables – because that changed upon coming back. I like vegetables a whole lot more and meat a whole lot less after working abroad.

Want to try it? In Cambodia, one could find this dish at every bus rest stop, restaurant with metal pots in the front (fast food), and most dine-in’s. It’s called “kaw” I think in Khmer.