Pinakbet with Pork Recipe

Pinakbet is a popular dish in the northern region of the Philippines, Ilocos. It has become famous in other regions as well and each has its own version be it in the choice of vegetables, seasoning or meat.


Pinakbet with Pork Recipe

This pinakbet with pork recipe is a kapampangan recipe which I inherited from my mother. I’m really glad to be able to cook this dish because it is one of my most favorite home cooked foods back home. Other versions of pinakbet recipes uses shrimps (which is the original Ilocano recipe) and fried/grilled fish. Both are delightful in their own distinct flavors. I’ve used pork in this recipe because of its unique flavor that goes really well with the veggies, especially when the pork is slightly crispy-fried.

Guinisang Kamatis at Itlog (Sauteed Tomatoes and Eggs)

Sauteed Tomatoes and Eggs

A tasty and easy to cook side dish for fried fish is Guinisang Kamatis or sauteed tomatoes. My mother would make it with eggs or without. The guinisang kamatis recipe without eggs though tastes a little sour than with eggs. But, I like both versions specially that tomatoes are good for us.

Here’s the recipe for Guinisang Kamatis at Itlog:

Ingredients:
6 pieces tomatoes
2 eggs
2 cloves minced garlic
1 small sliced onion
2 tbsp. patis or fish sauce
Salt
Cooking oil

Cooking procedure:
1) Sliced the tomatoes roughly.
2) Beat the eggs and season with a pinch of salt.
3) Heat cooking oil in a pan.
4) Sauté garlic until light brown.
5) Add onions and cook until translucent.
6) Add the sliced tomatoes and sauté until tomato skins curl.
7) Add the beaten eggs. Cook over low heat while stirring constantly.
8) Season with fish sauce and cook until the eggs nearly solidifies.
9) Serve with your favorite fried fish or pork chop.

Sardines with Misua

I prepared one quick and easy recipe for a late lunch today. It is the second day of no lunch breaks policy at work to give respect to the fasting traditions of Ramadan. I got home from work with a really hungry stomach at past 2pm. Anything in the cupboard or fridge that can be cooked and eaten was appetizing for me but it had to be done quickly. I initially thought of opening a can of sardines and eat it right away but I had a better idea. Besides hubby is still on his way home so I had to wait a little more. I enhanced the plain sardines in can dish and cooked it with misua.

Sardines with Misua
Misua is made of wheat flour and one of the varieties of Chinese noodles. It is very fine and brittle.

I finished cooking in no less than 15 minutes. It is recommended though that the sardines should be in tomato base but the only available can of sardines we had in the cupboard is in oil. I cooked it anyway with a little twist. I sautéed 2 large ripe chopped tomatoes to satisfy the tomato base. I was brave with the experiment and it tasted just as delicious as in using a tomato base sardines in can!

Here’s the recipe for my Sardines with Misua:

Ingredients:
1 small can sardines
50 grams misua
2 large chopped tomatoes
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp. fish sauce
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1-2 cups water
cooking oil

Cooking Instructions:
1) Heat oil in a small cooking pot.
2) When the oil is hot enough, sauté garlic until light brown.
3) Add chopped onions and cooked until translucent.
4) Put in the chopped tomatoes. Cook until saucy under medium heat.
5) Add the sardines, fish sauce and ground pepper. Cook for 2 minutes while stirring.
6) Add the water and let boil.
7) Put in misua and cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
8) Remove from heat, then serve in a bowl.
9) If desired, garnish with toasted garlic and chopped spring onion.

3-Kind Vegetable Stir-Fry in Oyster Sauce

A lot of parents find it difficult to make their children eat vegetables, but when I was a little kid I never gave my parents a hard time because I would always eat and finish my vegetables. Until today, I am still a veggie lover (but not a vegetarian). I would always like to have dishes with vegetables on it when dining out or make sure to incorporate vegetable servings in our weekly menu plan.

Two nights ago I prepared a dish that’s delicious and very simple to make, which involved vegetables and oyster sauce. I call it 3-Kind Vegetable Stir-Fry in Oyster Sauce. As the title suggests, I only used three types of vegetables namely: carrots, snow peas and white cabbage. Other types of vegetables can also be used like cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, bell peppers, etc. But, I stick to the three previously mentioned as I’d like to have a quickly prepared meal and within budget.


Stir-fry vegetable is always present in any Chinese restaurant menu but I cannot tell if it is solely a Chinese creation because I’ve seen the same dish exists in Thai cuisine. There is also a similar dish popular in Filipino cooking, which we adopted from Chinese, called chop suey.

Here’s the recipe for my 3-Kind Vegetable Stir-Fry in Oyster Sauce. You will like this because it is light and, as I mentioned, very simple to prepare.

Ingredients:
2 medium-sized carrots, sliced crosswise
100 grams snow peas (remove tips)
½ head cabbage, roughly sliced
½ cup oyster sauce
1 medium-sized onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Spring onions (optional)
¼ cup water (optional)
Vegetable oil


Cooking Instructions:
1. Heat oil in a wok. Sauté garlic and onion.
2. Add carrots and sauté for about 2 minutes.
3. Add oyster sauce and then follow with snow peas and cabbage. Add water if you desire. Add spring onions (optional). Stir constantly until all vegetables are cooked (bright in color). Do not over cook vegetables to maintain crispness.

Preparation and cooking time: 20-25 minutes
Serving size: 2-3 persons

Useful Info:
1. Stir-fry meals are best done using a wok over a high heat.
2. Constant stirring will allow equal distribution of the heat to vegetables and prevent over cooking.

Guinisang Ampalaya with Shrimps Recipe

Guinisang ampalaya is one of my favorite vegetable dishes. As I previously mentioned, Boq and I love ampalaya, one reason is because of its health benefits.


Some people especially the kids do not like to eat ampalaya because of its strong bitter taste. There are actually a couple of ways to reduce the bitterness of ampalaya. One is to soak it (already sliced) with water and squeeze, and the other is to rub it with lots of salt and wash thoroughly. I also encountered one particular cook that she was boiling the ampalaya to reduce the bitterness. I do not like soaking or boiling the ampalaya, what I always like to do is the rubbing and rinsing method.

Guinisang ampalaya can be cooked with strips of pork or shrimps. For this recipe, being another favorite, I used shelled shrimps.


Ingredients:
4 medium size ampalaya or bitter gourd or bitter melon by others, cut in half lengthwise, cored and sliced diagonally
3 medium size tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
3 pieces egg, beaten and slightly salted
300 grams shrimp, shelled
Vegetable oil
Shrimp cubes (optional)
3-5 tbsp. fish sauce

Cooking Instructions:
1. Sauté garlic until slightly brown. Add onion and cook until translucent.
2. Add tomatoes and shrimp cubes. Cook until tomatoes are soft. Then add shrimps and cook until half done.
3. Put in sliced ampalaya. Cover and stir occasionally until cooked.
4. Lastly, add beaten eggs. Stir continuously until egg is completely cooked.


Preparation and cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Serving size: 4-5 persons

Bon appétit!

Chunkee Corned Beef Guisado with Green Beans

When you are really hungry and yet you still want to have a decent meal, you can always depend on foodstuff disguising as tin cans. These dependable foodstuffs are famously known among pinoys as “de lata.” :)

Aside from sardines, I always like mixing canned corned beef with vegetables for added nutrient. So even when I was already having hunger pangs I did take the time to do a quick sautéing. Boq and I both like the chunkee variety of Purefoods corned beef because you can really see the beef fiber.

Often, in pinoy cooking, corned beef will be mixed with cube-sliced potatoes. Since I’m not a fan of potatoes, I used green beans instead for this recipe. It was a better choice because green beans required less time to cook than potatoes, meaning I didn’t have to prolong the agony of starving myself and Boq.

Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 small can purefoods chunkee corned beef
100 grams green beans, sliced diagonally to half-inch size
1 small onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp. Fish sauce
Ground black pepper (optional)
Vegetable oil

Cooking Instructions:
Heat oil in a pan. Saute garlic until light brown. Add onion, cook until translucent. Add fish sauce. Give a quick stirring. Add green beans and cook for 3 minutes or until the beans is bright green. Add chunkee corned beef, stir and cook for another 3 minutes.

Preparation and cooking time: 15 minutes
Serving size: 2-3

Pansit Guisado Recipe

Boq and I bought rice noodles some couple of weeks back and used a few strands for rice noodle soup (I'll post the recipe here in the future). We did not know what to do with the rest of the noodles so I suggested why not make a pansit guisado instead.

Pansit is a popular noodle dish in the Philippines, which is commonly served during fiestas, birthday occasions and widely celebrated holidays.

The typical pansit guisado recipe consists of very thin rice noodles stir-fried with chopped vegetables, soy sauce and some variations of sliced meat (e.g. chicken, pork & shrimps). When eaten, it is normally seasoned with black pepper powder, lemon/kalamansi (citrus) and patis (fish sauce).

In this recipe, I used chicken and liver for the meat ingredient. Chicken liver is tastier than the chicken meat in my opinion. And since it is also ideal to cook pansit guisado using two kinds of noodles I used pansit bihon and pansit canton together.

Ingredients:

200g pansit bihon (rice noodles or vermicelli)

200g pansit canton (Chinese noodle)

100g chicken meat, boiled and cut into strips

150g liver meat, boiled and diced

1/2 kilo cabbage, shredded

200g green beans, sliced thinly

1 medium-sized carrot, cut into strips

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

5 cloves garlic, minced

green bell pepper, cut into strips (optional)

soy sauce to taste

chicken bouillon cubes or chicken stock

vegetable or palm oil

water

For seasoning: lemon/kalamansi (citrus), black pepper powder and fish sauce

Procedure:
1)Heat oil in a large wok or pot.
2)Sauté garlic until light brown then add onion.
3)Add the chicken strips and diced liver.
4)Then add the vegetable ingredients in the following order: green beans, carrots, cabbage and bell pepper.
5)Season with soy sauce then add water and chicken cubes or chicken stock.
6)Add the vermicelli and noodles. Add more water/chicken stock, if desired. Stir continuously until cooked.

Useful Info:
1) To eliminate the difficulty of mixing, boil and cook first the Chinese noodles to make it pliant in a separate pot.
2) Similarly, soak the rice noodles or vermicelli in the water 2-3 minutes to make it pliant.
3) Use a large wok or pot when cooking pansit guisado as the mixing is a bit rigorous.

Preparation and Cooking Time: 45-60 minutes
Serving size: 6-8 persons

Upo Guisado and Fried Fish

One of my favorite meal combinations is vegetable dish and fried fish simply because it’s healthy, fast and easy to prepare. Perfect for working couples like me and Boq. In a breeze, dinner was ready with vegetable, fried fish and rice served on the dining table. It was simple yet healthy and yummy.

Ingredients:

1 large Upo, sliced into strips (Upo is the Filipino term for bottle gourd, it is in the same family of bitter gourd)

1 medium-size tomato, chopped

1 onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic, crushed

fish sauce

beef bouillon cube (optional)

vegetable oil

Cooking Instruction:
Heat oil in a pan. Sauté garlic and onion. Add tomato and cook for 3 minutes. Add fish sauce and beef bouillon cube. Add sliced upo and let it simmer until cook while stirring occasionally. Add some water as you desire to increase the sauce.

Preparation and cooking time: 15 minutes
Serving size: good for 2 persons

Bon Appetit!