Cơm Tấm (Broken Rice with Grilled Pork)

Name: Cơm Tấm (Broken Rice with Grilled Pork)
Total time: 1 h 40 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Vietnamese (Saigon / South)
Ingredients: 400 g Broken rice (gạo tấm); 4 Pork chops, bone in, 1.5 cm thick; 3 stalks Lemongrass, minced; 5 cloves Garlic, minced; 2 Shallots, minced; 7 tbsp Fish sauce (nước mắm); 6 tbsp Sugar; 1 tbsp Honey; 1 tbsp Dark soy sauce; 1 tsp Black pepper; 4 tbsp Neutral oil; 5 Spring onions, finely sliced; 200 g Carrot and daikon, julienned; 4 tbsp Rice vinegar; 1 each Cucumber and tomato, sliced; 2 tbsp Lime juice; 1 tbsp Garlic and chilli, minced

Saigon's plate: fractured rice grains with a lemongrass-marinated pork chop off the grill, a slick of scallion oil, pickles, cucumber and a small bowl of fish sauce to pour over everything.

Source

Recette de Southern Vietnamese home kitchens · 🏺 Traditionnel · Saigon and Mekong Delta home cooking — sweeter, coconut-led, served with herbs by the armful

Southern Vietnamese everyday plate · Saigon — An ownerless southern dish with no documented creator. The reference confirms that broken rice is fragments of grains broken in handling, that the dish emerged among poor rice farmers in the Mekong Delta in bad harvest seasons before becoming iconic in 20th-century Saigon, the standard components of sườn nướng grilled pork chop, bì shredded pork skin, chả trứng steamed egg meatloaf, mỡ hành scallion oil, nước mắm pha, cucumber, tomato and pickled carrot and radish, and the local saying that Saigon people eat cơm tấm as Hanoi people eat phở. This book's plate includes the chop, scallion oil and pickles, with bì and chả trứng described in the tips rather than built as separate recipes. Quantities are ordinary home proportions.

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Tam David Nguyen binhcooking

⏱ 100 min🍽 4 portions🔥 700 kcal🇻🇳 Vietnam🌶️

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Étapes

Pound the lemongrass, garlic and shallots into a rough paste, then mix with 3 tbsp fish sauce, 3 tbsp sugar, the dark soy, pepper and 1 tbsp oil. Rub it into the chops and leave them at least 2 hours, or overnight.
💡 Pounding beats chopping here. Bruised lemongrass releases oils that a knife just cuts through, and the marinade smells completely different.
Pickle the carrot and daikon in the vinegar with 2 tbsp sugar and a pinch of salt for 30 minutes, squeezing them once with your hands to help them soften.
Rinse the broken rice gently twice — no more — and cook it with slightly less water than usual, about 1.2 parts water to 1 part rice. Let it rest 10 minutes off the heat.
💡 Broken grains have far more exposed starch than whole ones. Scrub them like normal rice and you wash away the very softness you bought them for.
Make the scallion oil: heat 3 tbsp oil until shimmering and pour it over the sliced spring onion with a pinch of salt. Mix the dipping sauce from the remaining fish sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, the lime juice, garlic, chilli and 150 ml warm water.
Grill the chops over charcoal or in a very hot ridged pan, 4 to 5 minutes a side, brushing with honey for the last minute. Rest them 5 minutes before slicing.
💡 The sugar in the marinade will catch and blacken in spots. That is what it is supposed to do — pull it when the char is patchy, not when it is uniform.
Plate a mound of rice, spoon scallion oil over it, lay the chop alongside, and add the pickles, cucumber and tomato. Serve the fish sauce in a small bowl — most people tip the whole thing over the rice.

💡 Astuces

A full cơm tấm shop plate carries three more things: bì (shredded pork skin tossed with toasted rice powder), chả trứng (a steamed pork-and-egg loaf) and a fried egg. Any one of them turns this into the real thing.
Broken rice was what Mekong Delta farmers ate when the harvest went badly and the whole grains had to be sold. It became Saigon's signature plate anyway — locals say Saigon eats cơm tấm the way Hanoi eats phở.
Grill the chops in advance and they reheat badly. If you must, undercook them slightly and finish them in the hot pan just before serving.