Sometimes I fear I’m going to end up retyping Into the Vietnamese Kitchen in it’s entirety on this blog. So I will suffice to say thast last night I finally made the pantry staple caramel sauce. Used in savoury dishes in Vietnamese cooking it is a bittersweet condiment. This was used in Caramelised Mince Pork which I served over rice with a stirfry of baby silver beet, snow peas and green beans.

The greens were a variation on a water spinach recipe from the same book but as it was a variation, I’ll tell you what I did.

Baby Silverbeet, Snow Pea and Green Bean Stirfry
Bunch baby silver beet leaves
Big handful green beans, trimmed
Handful snow peas, trimmed
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
splash rice bran oil
1 1/2 teaspoons tapioca starch dissolved in 2 tablespoons water

Flavouring Sauce
1/2 teaspoon muscavado
1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 12 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons rice bran oil
Mix all ingredients for flavouring sauce in a bowl and add half the garlic. Set aside.

Heat oil in wok. Add garlic and vegetables and quickly stir until green colour intensifies. Then add tapioca starch mixture and flavouring sauce. Stir fry for another minute or so until sauce thickens. Serve.