Kulinarya was started by a group of Filipino foodies living in Sydney, who are passionate about the Filipino culture and it's colourful cuisine. Each month we will showcase a new dish along with their family recipes. By sharing these recipes we hope you find the same passion and love for Filipino food as we do.
This month's theme is Vegetables.
Filipinos are known for their fatty and fried foods. But there's more to Filipino cuisine to just lechon and chicharon. We love to eat vegetables. We also love seafood since the Philippines is made up of more than seven thousand islands, we are surrounded by ocean.
I chose to make Pinakbet. This dish is a popular vegetable dish and is usually made up of bitter melon, okra, eggplant and fermented fish sauce. I rarely have this but when I do, I love all the different vegetables that go in this dish. The bitter melon and okra (lady fingers) are vegetables I rarely eat unless it's in this dish. This is my mum's recipe and she makes it all the time. Needless to say, whenever I crave this, I just go over to her place to enjoy.
1/4 pumpkin (500g) cubed
1 bunch snake beans cut into 5cm batons
5 lady fingers, topped and tailed
1 bitter melon, halved then sliced into 3-4cm thickness. Soak in salted water for 10-15mins
1 onion, chopped
4-5 small eggplants, cut into quarter's lengthwise
1 tomato, large dice
1 knob of ginger, julienned
1/4 cup anchovy sauce (bagoong balayan)
100g pork, diced (optional)
100g raw prawns (optional)
1. In a large pot, saute the onion, garlic and ginger until transparent.
2. Add the tomato and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
3. If adding pork, add and simmer until cooked a little
4. Add the snake beans. Stir.
5. Add the anchovy sauce that has been mixed with 1/4 cup of water
6. Add the rest of the vegetables
7. Add enough water just to cover (about 1 cup)
8. Add the prawns
9. Simmer until vegetables are cooked through.
10. Serve with steamed rice and a piece of fried fish.
You can check out what the other members of the Kulinarya Cooking Club cooked up for this month's theme here
Bon Appetite,
Cherrie
Loving your food styling as of late!
ReplyDeleteI should really do more posts on my heritage too! Mum is going to bring me back some cookbooks from Malaysia :) and I have some IN French... must translate them!
x
I love Pinakbet with lots of bagoong especially with either crispy-fried tilapia or GG. You got the right combo there Cherrie! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete@Shellie, thanks Babe! Please post Malaysian dishes. One of my fav cuisines!
ReplyDelete@Ray, thanks. I love it with lots of Bagoong too. yum!
Glad you featured pinakbet, a Filipino vegetable dish... I have to cook that for my family (shh.. we are not veggie peeps haha!)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Cherrie... glad you still made KCC for March.
@Malou, thanks. I admit, I need to eat my vegies too.
ReplyDeleteNothing beats fried fish with pinakbet=) Super tlagang match made in heaven!
ReplyDeleteYum, yum, yum! I love this dish because of the ampalaya and okra!
ReplyDeleteNOOOOMMMMM!! This looks sooooo good!!! It reminds me of the Indonesian lodeh!! But looks sooo good.. oh wait I said that already :P
ReplyDeleteThis looks so delicious. I love bitter melon and okra but we rarely eat it as it is not always available and is a bit pricey. Love the crisp fried fish that goes with it. Yum!
ReplyDeletethat looks really good cherrie! i love pinakbet. actually it's one of those veggie dishes i eat (you know how hard it is for Filipinos to eat veggies :D). and i also like that you had fish with it. bagoong for the win! :)
ReplyDeleteI love pinakbet with bagoong isda! Great job!
ReplyDeletePinakbet is my favorite Filipino dish. Period. It goes great with bagoong.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that pinakbet is not a favorite of mine, but I do enjoy looking at your pretty pictures. Looks good enough to eat, even for us non-bitter melon fans.
ReplyDeleteOhh My dad used to make it all the time.
ReplyDeleteI remember one time when my Filipino friends invited me to this Filipino restaurant and they wanted to me try this dish together with what they call shrimp paste. It was one of the weirdest yet fulfilling time of the life. It stated really great. This one's a knockout!
ReplyDelete