Vietnamese Pork Chops, Fried Eggs and Rice

We're sure all you recently engaged or married folks out there know what it's like to be drowning in a sea of wedding invitations. Enter our world: dozens of bows to tie, labels to print, wax seals to impress. It's maddening. We've licked so much envelope glue, that it wouldn't surprise us if we turned up dead tomorrow like George Costanza's fiancee.

The good news is that all the big wedding stuff has been taken care of--the caterer, the dresses, the flowers, the engagement photos. You name it. Now all Val has to focus on is her last round of law school finals, graduation on May 21, and the Texas State Bar Exam. And Mani of course gets bar results next week. *gulp*

The end is in sight at least? Let's think positively!

Here's one of our favorite pictures from our engagement photo shoot with the ever-talented Sadia Zubair:

Now on to Vietnamese pork chops.

We thank the food gods daily that we are fortunate enough to live in a place like Houston, a city whose culinary scene is, in our estimation, the nation's best-kept secret. We have it all: from Tex-Mex to Cajun/Creole, southern cooking to Gulf Coast seafood. And we have numerous ethnic dining options to boot: Latin American, Korean, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and South East Asian.

Our recent obsession has been everything Vietnamese. We live smack-dab in Midtown, which is literally a stone's throw away from some of the city's best pho/bahn mi sandwich joints, as well as a few of our favorite Vietnamese restaurants. 

Indeed it was a sad day to witness billowing smoke and dozens of firetrucks surrounding Mai's from our apartment building just over a year ago. Mai's officially reopened its doors in early April, and we have yet to go back for a try. But when one dining door closes (or burns down), others open. Since that fateful day, we have ventured out from our Midtown confines to satiate our craving for Vietnamese food. Best yet, we began learning to cook our favorite Vietnamese dishes at home.

Our first attempt, we are proud to say, was a smashing success. We made Vietnames pork chops with fried eggs and rice. It's an inexpensive dish; we spent roughly $4 per serving. 

Ingredients (4 servings)

1 large Ziplock bag

1 lb (4 thin slices) center-cut loin pork chops, bone-in 

4 tbsp of Asian fish sauce to taste

4 tbsp oyster sauce 

salt & pepper to taste

1 tbsp granulated sugar 

2 shallots, minced 

2 cloves of garlic, minced 

juice of 1 lemon

1 jalapeño, sliced (optional)

1 cup of cucumber, large dice

4 tbsp green onion, chopped

Sriracha sauce (optional)

drizzle of extra virgin olive oil 

 You can find all the ingredients for this dish in your neighborhood grocery store. Check the international or Asian sections for the fish and oyster sauces.

 Salt and pepper the chops on both sides and place them in a large Ziplock bag. Marinate the chops in the fish/oyster sauces, jalapeño, shallot, garlic, lemon juice and sugar for at least two hours. We threw our chops in the refrigerator in the morning before work and cooked them up for dinner. 

 Begin by cooking a pot of white rice (one cup per person should suffice). Dump the contents of the Ziplock bag onto a stovetop grill pan over medium-high heat, along with a couple of tablespoons of oil, and cook until golden brown. Next, fry up a sunny side egg to put atop a steaming mound of white rice.

Serve with cucumber, green onions and Sriracha. Enjoy!