After work I had a sudden intense craving for our family’s favorite dish.
Grandma used to make this and I remember we each got half a tomato stuffed with delicious pork, served with rice and some spicy chili in fish sauce.
Farci was probably brought to us by the French. Merci!
Hope you like it!
Ingredients:
1 small onion finely chopped
6 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 lb ground pork
4 large firm tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
1 tsp fish sauce (VietnamEazy style, otherwise you can use more and less salt)
1/2 dried wood eared mushrooms (use shiitake if not available)
1 handful dried glass noodles 2 Tbsp sugar Salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup Olive oil or vegetable oil
In a large bowl, soak the mushrooms and noodles in warm water for 5 minutes. Once they are rehydrated, drain and chop finely.
In another large bowl, combine pork, mushrooms, noodles, 1/2 of chopped onions and garlic. Save the remaining garlic and onions for the sauce. Add salt, pepper, 1 Tbsp sugar, and fish sauce to taste.
TIP: Put a little on a paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds to taste the meat so you can adjust the seasoning accordingly.
Stuff the tomatoes with meat.
In a hot pan add olive oil, sweat the onions and garlic and add to the center of the tomatoes and tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In another hot pan, heat up some vegetable oil and sear the stuffed tomatoes meat side down until golden brown.
Add stuffed tomatoes to sauce meat side up. Cover and cook on medium heat (add 1/2 cup of water) for about 15 -20 minutes until pork is thoroughly cooked.
VoiLà!! Enjoy!
Trami Cron
Author, VietnamEazy Trami is the founder of Chopsticks Alley and author of the novel VietnamEazy, a novel about Mothers, Daughters and Food. She is passionate about the emergence of the VietNow culture in America. As a Vietnamese-American, she created Chopsticks Alley as a platform for the younger Vietnamese generation to have a space to express their point of views about news, business, art, food, and culture. She hopes this platform will also help to unite the Vietnamese Community all over the world.