Adobong sitaw 2

I have an older recipe for adobong sitaw where I used small cubes of pork belly. This time, I used ground lean pork.

Is there much difference? Well, adobo is basically a fatty dish. It just doesn’t taste right unless there is some fat in the meat and the sauce (I have a little trick for solving that problem). So, using ground lean pork does make a difference. I suppose it’s a matter of what is right for you. I didn’t really choose the ground lean pork for health considerations–it was what I had at the moment. And the cooked dish, although not in the league of the usual fatty adobo, was great. Still tasty and tangy and satisfying. I even sprinkled the dish with red pepper flakes just before serving and, oh my, that really perked it up.

Ingredients :

250 grams of ground lean pork
2 bunches of sitaw (string beans), cut into 2-inch lengths
1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 onion or 2 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
ground black pepper
1/4 c. of vinegar
about 3 tbsps. of soy sauce
2 tbsps. of vegetable cooking oil
1-2 hardboiled eggs
chopped cilantro and red pepper flakes for garnish

Cooking procedure :

Place the ground pork, garlic, onion or shallots, ground pepper and bay leaf in a shallow cooking pan. Pour the vegetable cooking oil over. Because of the leanness of the pork, I didn’t want the meat to turn dry so the purpose of adding cooking oil is to help it retain its succulence.

Pour in the vinegar and cook over medium-high heat until the vinegar starts to boil. Stir, breaking up the meat. Pour in the soy sauce and stir well. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the sitaw, stir, cover and simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the sitaw is tender.

The water from the sitaw, the natural juices of the pork, the vinegar and the soy sauce are usually enough to cook everything without the dish becoming too dry. However, the age of the hog (tenderness of the pork) and the maturity of the sitaw are also factors. So, if it looks like either of them is taking too long to cook, you can add about 1/4 cup of water.

When both the pork and the sitaw are tender, transfer them to a serving plate. Garnish with quarters of hardboiled eggs then sprinkle with chopped cilantro and red pepper flakes.

*Note: Red pepper flakes are available in the dried herbs section of most supermarkets.

Chicken, gizzards and upo (bottle gourd) soup

Together with the baked scallops, this chicken, gizzards and upo (bottle gourd) soup were the last things I cooked before I finally acknowledged that I was sick and had to stay in bed. I started feeling strange on Saturday but not bad enough to change my usual routine. Despite the chills on Saturday evening (I thought the aircon’s temperature was just too cold), I managed to cook lunch on Sunday. Then, on Sunday evening, I knew I was really sick and dinner consisted mostly of leftovers and make-your-own sandwiches.

My father’s sarciado

My father was a wonderful cook. He was more than a cook–he was a true blue foodie. What was so great about his cooking was that he not only knew how to combine ingredients, he was also very particular about the cut and quality of meat. I would never have known about the cut called “batok” if it weren’t for him. For those who don’t speak Filipino, “batok” means the back of the neck. I don’t know what the proper name for that beef cut would be in English but, in the Philippines, we call it “batok”. It is meat marbled with fat. That is why, when cooked, beef “batok” is very tender and very juicy.

Sweet and spicy talakitok in a flash

We haven’t properly replenished our food and cooking supplies after last week’s typhoons, blackout and water problems. We stayed in a hotel for two days and, after checking out yesterday, my husband I went went straight to the supermarket. We had to; otherwise, we would still have to eat instant noodles and cannned meat loaf for dinner last night. The freezer was totally empty after I threw out a pack of chicken and longganisa last Monday (or was it Sunday?). I had to get rid of half a can of Queensland butter, half of a 1-kg block of quickment cheese, a jar of grated parmesan and Romano cheese, a carton of milk that was still three-quarters full, a half-full carton of guava juice, rotting vegetables… so, it was time to go to the supermarket. But replacing everything we had to throw out wasn’t that simple. There were no good vegetables available (not surprising after the typhoons and the floods). The onions were bad and the tomatoes were even worse. Although I was able to get some decent potatoes, I decided to buy the other staples at a later time.

Pancit miki (habhab)

I cooked this noodle dish last Wednesday, the day before typhoon Milenyo hit the Philippines. Never got a chance to post it until now. We had no power, and water, until last night. Most of the contents of the fridge had to be thrown out. The meat in the freezer thawed out completely on the second day. At least I was able to salvage 2 kilos of pork liempo (belly) which I cooked as adobo on Thursday, and 2 kilos of chicken wings and thighs which I fried on Friday. After that, we were living on canned goods and instant noodles. The very limited and always precarious water supply, and not knowing when the next water delivery would come, obliged us to stretch our water supply as much as we could. No cooking. Eat out of paper plates. Drink from disposable plastic cups.

Tokwa’t baboy as a stew

Traditionally, tokwa’t baboy is a side dish served with lugaw (congee). Pork face is simmered in salted water until tender, chopped into cubes, tossed with crisp fried tokwa (firm tofu) and served with a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, chopped onions, garlic, ginger and hot chili.