Bicol Express

You will need;

1 kilo of pork meat sliced

1/2 cup of Philippine bird's eye pepper (siling labuyo)

3 cups coconut milk

1/2 cup sauted shrimp paste

4 cloves garlic; crushed

1 small onion; chopped

Then What you have to do;

In a cooking pan, place a cup of water and add the pork. simmer until the water disappers Continue cooking until pork starts to render fat and edges turn to brown.

In another pan, sauté minced onion and garlic. Add  the sauté the browned pork. Throw in the chili peppers.

Add sauted shrimp paste and stir, then pour the coconut milk (.you may pour gradually in preference to the amount of sauce you want)
Cook in low fire until pork becomes tender and until a saucy consistency is achieved. Serve hot

Note: I did not use any cooking oil since the pork will render it's own fat will fying and the coconut milk will give natural oils too while cooking.

Adobong Pork and Sitao

Use you favorite adobo recipe then once its cook, lower the heat and thrown - in the string beans (or kangkong) simmer for a minutes. Turn off the heat and slightly cover the pan.

I so love this recipe. Theres the yummy taste of pork and the healthy goodness of the vegetable.  tara kain na!

Grilled Pork Chops

 Another easy recipe which you can enjoy with the family.

6 pork chops,
1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 teaspoon (or more) hot sauce (Tabasco, etc.)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper to taste


Sprinkle pork chops with a little salt and pepper. Grill pork chops over medium coals for 35 minutes, turning once.
Meanwhile, make barbecue sauce. In small saucepan, combine tomato sauce, water, onion, ketchup, hot sauce, sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and salt. Bring sauce to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Brush pork chops with sauce; grill 5 minutes. Turn, brush the other side, and gill 5 minutes longer.
 If you want, you can slice the porkchops in bite size pieces before serving,

Easy Sweet and Sour Pork

For this you need:

half kilo pork. cut in serving pieces

1 pack breading mix bought at the supermarket (this save my time)

For the sauce you need:

2 tsp brown sugar

half cup pineapple chunks, set aside the syrup

half cup pineapple crushed, set aside the syrup

1-2 tsp of thai chili sauce

1/4 cup tomato sauce

1 bell pepper cut in squares

1 onion quartered

Now what you'll do;

Put the breading mix on a bowl and dredge in the pork pieces.making sure that the pork is well coated.

In a pan, heat enough oil. Then throw in the pork pieces in the hot oil. Cook until both sides are brown. Place on a paper towel to remove excess oil.

In a separate saucepan, dissolve sugar in pineapple syrup.  Simmer for a minute or two. Add in the onions, bell pepper, chunk and crushed pineapples, tomato sauce and the Thai chili sauce. Simmer again for a minute. Turn off the heat. Add the fried breaded pork pieces and mix until the pork is well coated with the sauce.
Serve and enjoy.

Gyoza

Let me share you the recipe of one of my favorite japanese food. Yaki Gyoza!!!!yummm!

You will need;
1/2 pound ground pork
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
2 tsps soysauce
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1 fresh egg
1/3 cup chopped cabbage
2 Tbsp chopped green onion
20 gyoza wrappers (the round ones)
1 Tbsp sesame oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste

So you will do

In a bowl, mix in the ground pork, soy sauce, sesame oil, fresh egg. When everything is incorporated add the chopped cabbage, grated ginger and spring onions . Set aside and cover the bowl with cling wrap. I did this to make sure that the taste of  pork and the vegetable blends well together.

Place a teaspoonful of filling in a gyoza wrapper and put water along the edge of the wrapper by fingers. Make a semicircle, gathering the front side of the wrapper and sealing the top.

Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil (or whatever cooking oil you have)

When the pan is hot, place the gyoza in the pan. Add a cup of water or enough just to cover the gyoza. When the water disappears, drizzle some oil (I used sesame oil) and fry  for 2 minutes or until the bottom side turn brown. Use a spatula to scoop the gyoza out.

Serve with dipping sauce which is one part soy sauce,one part rice vinegar and one part chili oil. If you don't have rice vinegar and chili oil it tastes great in just soy sauce too.

Itadakimasu!!!

Pork Menudo

Menudo, is another comfort food that brings childhood memories. When we were kids, my mom owned this small food business. She offered dishes to her customers such as picadillo, dinuguan, kaldereta, sauted corned beef and menudo. So during lunch and dinner, my siblings and I can pick any viand that we wanted from our small carinderia. My siblings would picked picadillo while I preferred menudo. :)

I remembered we would helped mom chopped the onions and crushed the garlic she used in her cooking. That was the time I started to love cooking too. :)

Anyway, here is my simple Menudo recipe I learned from my mom.

You will need;

1/2k pork kasim, diced
1 cup diced pork liver
(marinte both pork and liver this also in soy sauce and pepper)
2-3 hotdogs sliced
2 cups pork broth
2 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup cubed red ripe tomatoes
1/4 c. tomato sauce
1 green bell, diced
2 cups diced potatoes
1 carrots cut in cubes
2  tsp fish sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Then what you will do;

1. First fry the potato and carrot cubes, in batches, until the edges are lightly browned. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

2. Sauté onion, garlic and tomatoes then add pork then simmer uncovered, reduce the liquid to half.


3. Add the pork liver then mix, mix, mix.

4. Add tomato sauce, carrots, potatoes. Simmer stirring occasionally.


5. Then pour 1/2 cup pork broth. Season with salt.

6. Simmer for 10 more minutes.

7. Serve hot.

This is my entry for Food Friday. Happy FF day everyone!

Kare-Kare

kare-kare was cooked traditionally with freshly ground roasted peanuts and rice. I haven't tried though. I find the procedure too much time for today’s busy lifestyle. So What I do, I used ready mixes. :)

So for my easy kare-kare here is my recipe...

You will need,

1k pork (I used kasim)
1 bunch of pechay
1 bunch of string beans
3 eggplant sliced diagonally
1/4 cup banana blossom
1-pack mama sita kare kare mix dissolve in 1 cup broth/water
1 tbsp of peanut butter
another 1 cup of broth
onion chopped
garlic chopped

Then...

In a pot, boil the pork for 10-15 minutes until tender. Cut in serving pieces and set aside the broth

In a saucepan, saute the onions and garlic. Then add the eggplant, string beans saute for 5 minutes. add the pechay then the banana blossom. Set aside. (I do cook my vegetable separately so it wont be overcook)

In a separate saucepan, drizzle oil. Thrown in the onion and garlic. Add the pork. cooked for 5 minutes. Then add the cup broth let it simmer. Then add the mama sita kare kare mix dissolved in broth/water. Then peanut butter. Mix until the peanut butter is dissolved. At this time, the sauce will slowly thickens. Make sure you lessen the heat. Simmer for another minute.

You can add the vegetable at the pot or add the vegetable when serving. I prefer the last option. :)

Serve hot with bagoong alamang.

By the way, I posted seafood kare-kare before. Maybe you want to check it too.

Adobo Flakes

And because I wanted to feed the husband with something new, I decided to make adobo flakes. We dont have left over adobo so I cooked it first before making the flakes. It's my first time and I must say that I maybe making this more often.

For this you'll need

1k pork kasim or chicken (I used pork)

1/4 cup vinegar (I used cane vinegar)

1/2 cup soysauce

lots of garlic crushed

bay leaf

freshly cracked black pepper

then in a pot, just throw everything wait until the meat gets tender. Do taste it to make sure that it's flavor is just enough.

Then when the meat is done, let it cool and shred it by hand.

Then get 1/4 cup of the adobo sauce (and the adobo oil too) and heat it in a pan and boil the meat flakes. Stir and wait until the sauce evaporates. Continue adding the sauce 4 times or so until the you get this crispy/chewy texture.

Perfect with fried rice or palaman sa pandesal.

Humba

Humba Recipe (Braised Pork Belly) is one of the easiest dish I know and one of my favorite comfort foods.

TO make it, you'll just need:

1 lb. pork pork belly cut into serving pieces

1 cup water

garlic, crushed

1/3 cup vinegar

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. peppercorns

1tsp. oil

salt to taste

1 heaping tablespoon salted black beans

In a medium pot, saute garlic in oil until brown. Add pork and cook until brown. Combine water, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, bay leaf and black beans and add to pork. Cook over low heat until pork is tender. Serve hot.

Easy right?

If you wanted it to be a healthy meal, why not add tofu like what I did. :)

Tofu and Pork (Tokwa't Baboy)

Tokwa't Baboy

Whenever I visit my kapampangan officemate slash kumare at San Fernando, she would always prepare this dish. She knew how I love tofu (tokwa) . This dish is a bit different from the usual tokwa't baboy because it uses calamasi juice instead of vinegar.

My husband love it too. So this evening he requested it for dinner.

Now let me share how to prepare this very simple dish.

You'll need:

400 g. pork (kasim) fried and cut into bite size pieces

1 big tofu, fried, toast it and cut into pieces

2 onion chopped

half cup soysauce

calamasi juice (from 10 calamasi pieces)

chili pepper

Combine the soysauce, calamsi juice, chopped onions and chili pepper. I add more chili pepper since I want it spicy. :)

In a large bowl, toss together the pork and tokwa cubes. Pour in the soysauce mixture over the pork and tokwa.

Serve and enjoy!