Vegetable Recipe

For two weeks I was joining What's Cooking Wednesday and due to the busyness of schedule it got stopped and now...well I'm on it again. Though it will be the first time to do it here as I used to share this entry at my Mariposa's Tales site. The reason for doing it here is that for the most part here I've been putting emphasis on vegetable meal and I feel it is just but right to feature a vegetable recipe here.

So this post is a (not) WORDful (less) Wednesday and What's Cooking Wednesday in one!

This nutritious and yummy dish is called Pinakbet which is just a vegetable stew with shrimp paste. This is a popular filipino viand and is a favorite of mine.





So let me share to you in a very simple easy to prepare recipe!

Ingredients

• 1/4 kilo pork with fat, cut into small pieces

• 2 Ampalaya (bitter gourd) sliced to bite size pieces

• 2 eggplants, sliced to bite size pieces

• 5 pieces of okra, cut in two

• 1 head garlic, minced

• 2 onions, diced

• 5 tomatoes, sliced

• 1 tablespoon of ginger, crushed and sliced

• 4 tablespoons shrimp paste (for people who are allergic to this, alternatively you can have pork rinds popularly known here is chicharon)

• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

• 1 1/2 cup water

• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a cooking pan, heat oil and fry the pork until brown, remove the pork from the pan and set aside.
2. On the same pan, saute garlic, onion, ginger and tomatoes.
3. In a casserole, boil water and add shrimp paste. (Or the pork rinds, or you may skip this part.)
4. Add the pork in the casserole and mix in the sautéed garlic, onion, ginger and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or less.
5. Add in all the vegetables and cook until the vegetables are done, but careful not to overcook. (Vegetables are highly nutritous but we can lost it in just a matter or minutes the moment we subject them to too much heat.)
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve hot. (We usually serve it here with plain rice.)

Some people do it with interchange #3 and #5 as they usually add in the water last. I usually don't do that as it risked overcooking the vegetables or making them too tender.

For more interesting photos, you may visit Wordless Wednesday and Wordful Wednesday...or go to The Fairy Blogmother for more What's Cooking Wednesday participants.