Crispy Tofu & Chicken Dumplings

I love dumplings. Wontons, siomai, gyoza, mandu, whatever you call it, I love them. We had a slight blunder in ordering chicken delivery (what we got was super-spicy fried chicken). There were only a couple of pieces that were eaten from that order so I decided to strip the meat from the bones and chopped it up. I figured I could use it in burritos, quesadillas or even dumplings. I decided to do the latter.

Fried Tofu and Chicken Dumplings

Ingredients:

1 pack dumpling wrappers 

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

1 cup crumbled tofu (firm variety)

1 egg

2 tablespoons grated carrots

1/4 cup grated onions

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons soy sauce

salt & pepper

oil for frying

Directions:

1. Combine all the listed ingredients (except for the oil) in a large mixing bowl. Salt and pepper the mixture to taste. Make sure everything is well combined.

2. Take one dumpling wrapper and place a tablespoon of the mixture in the middle, seal up the edges with egg white (the best "glue" to seal your dumplings). Set aside on a plate.

3. Do the rest for all the wrappers and mixture.

4. Prepare your steamer and steam the dumplings for about 5-7 minutes. Remember, these will be fried later.

5. When all the dumplings are cooked, take them out and let them cool on a plastic-lined tray (or oiled, so that the dumplings don't stick to the surface).

6. Heat about 1/2 cup of oil in a deep frying pan. Put the heat to medium and drop dumplings one by one. When one side gets golden-brown (about 1-2 minutes) flip them over and fry that side. Take out the dumplings and put them on papertowels to drain.

Serve hot with your preferred dip: ketchup, soysauce with vinegar, chili-garlic sauce, etc.

I tried one, it was amazing!

I fried a couple to test them out. They were amazing! The first bite was crunchy and then the filling was good and savory. It went well with my soup and tofu salad meal for lunch. If you can see below the filling turned out nice and done. If you plan to freeze them, do it on a tray first (spaced apart, not touching together). Then once it's frozen, just take them out and let thaw a bit and fry them. 

This was a serendipitous recipe borne out of a botched chicken order. I can't wait to have these again tomorrow for a late afternoon snack.

Filipino Pork Barbeque - Sinugba-style

One of my favorite Filipino dinner to fix is Sinugbang Baboy (which means Grilled Pork or Pork Barbecue in Tagalog). Like what I mentioned before, Filipinos love pork, they love Spam, too. But pork is revered in the Philippines. There would be no Letchon (Roasted Pig), Adobo, Crispy Pata (Pork Leg), etc. without our beloved porcine meat. And topping that list would be Sinugbang Baboy.

Like there are many ways to cook adobo, there are myriad ways to make this simple dish. Now, this is my go-to recipe.

Filipino Pork Barbeque

Ingredients:

1 kilo sliced pork (fatty cuts like pork chops, pork belly, etc.)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons minced garlic (about 4-5 cloves)
1/2 cup ketchup (yes, ketchup trust me on this)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tablespoon oil

1. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade: soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, ketchup, salt&pepper in a large mixing bowl. The ketchup will add a balance of sweetness to the pork and at the same time giving it a nice red tint. Make sure that the bowl is non-reactive (metal). Cover the pork and let it marinade for a couple of hours, or if you can wait, overnight in the fridge.

2. Set your grill out. If using coals, make sure that the coals are nice and hot before you slap the meat on the grill. If you use an electric grill like I do, brush the grill with oil when it gets hot before you lay down the meat. Grill over medium heat, about 10-15 minutes each side (this depends how thick your slices of meat are, the thinner, the faster it gets cooked).

Now when your pork is done, set it out with steamed rice, salad (I love oysters cerviche with this) and a dipping sauce made out of equal parts of soy sauce and vinegar with a dash of lemon in it.

Roasted Eggplant Salad

I love eggplants. I love them in moussakas, in lasagnas, in tempuras and most especially, roasted in a salad. This salad is very versatile. It can be served as a light appetizer, or as a side dish for anything barbeque'd. I love this salad when I eat my very Filipino meal of fried fish and rice. It adds a zing to the meal and wakens the appetite even more. Let me show you how I prepare this kind of salad.

Ingredients:
2-3 oriental eggplants (long thin purple ones)
1/2 medium onion
1 large tomato
Bagoong (sauteed Filpino fermented shrimp)**

1. On a grill, roast the eggplants until the skin is nice and charred. You can also use the direct flame method (that I use) using a metal rack placed on top of your stove and roast the eggplants directly over the flame. You can also use an oven but you won't get that charring effect on the skin and the taste is slightly different. Remember to pierce the skin with a skewer or a fork all over. You don't want it exploding on you while you are grilling or roasting it. (It happened to me and the results were not pretty. Pretty much my kitchen was sprayed with eggplant innards).

2. When the skin of the eggplants are nicely charred and cooked, pop them in a paper bag and let them sit on the counter for 5-10 minutes. The steam from the cooked inner meat of the eggplant will soften the charred skin and make it easy to slip it off. Take the eggplant out and gently rub the charred skin away. Chop or dice the eggplant in small squares and put in a mixing bowl.

3. Roughly dice or chop the onion and tomatoes and add to the mixing bowl. Toss all the ingredients together. Add a tablespoon of bagoong and toss again. Serve as a side dish to your meal.

**If you don't have bagoong, use other fermented shrimp pastes as a substitute.

Roast Thyme Pork Loin - A Family Favorite

My family is a family of meat eaters. My boys and my hubby always crave for a good portion of meat with a starchy side dish (rice, potatoes, bread, etc.). One of the perennial family favorite is my Roast Pork Loin redolent with Thyme. I don't marinate the loin, I dry rub it. 

Marinate is when you soak the meat in a liquid-type mixture of sauces, condiments and spices. Dry-rub is different. You basically take your meat, rub it with whatever spice powder, herb mixture, flavored salt, etc. that you have and let it sit for a while. The best time is 1 hour. But in my case when my days are busy and my men are hungry, I just rub my herbs and powders on and then pop it in the oven.

Here's my go-to mixture of dry rub:

Onion powder

Garlic powder

Lawry's seasoned salt (*if you don't have this, substitute with your choice of flavored salt)**

Dried thyme leaves

1. Put your pork loin on a big platter and pat it dry with a paper towel or a clean dish rag.

2. Sprinkle onion powder evenly to coat all the surface of the loin.

3. Do the same with the rest of the ingredients.

4. Once the meat is thoroughly covered, let it sit for an hour (optional).

5. Heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius and pop the meat in and cook for about 50 minutes to an hour (depending on the size and thickness of the meat).

6. The roast is done when the surface of the meat is evenly browned and the juices run clear when the loin is pierced with a fork.

7. Take it out of the oven and let it rest for about 5-7 minutes. This will allow juices to come out (for gravy or for drizzling over the starchy accompaniment).

8. Slice and serve the roast.

**(if you don't have flavored salt, just use salt and pepper).

From old to new ~ Bread Pudding

If you have a family with finicky eaters like mine, you will end up with a lot of bread. I mean bread trimmings. My hubby and youngest son don't like the edges of sliced bread. So, they slice them off and just eat the white part of the bread. Well, me and Bottomless Pit (eldest son) don't care and eat the whole thing.

What I do with the bread trimmings is that I gather them in a resealable plastic bag and stuff them in my freezer. When I see that the bag has morphed into two bags of bread trimmings (along with old bread), I take all of the bread and dump it in a large mixing bowl. Let's say, it'll be about 10-12 cups of bread. Add some eggs, sugar, sliced fruit, milk, etc. and you'll find that old, unwanted bread becomes yummy, delicious snack/dessert called bread pudding.




Here's my own recipe: Bread Pudding




Ingredients:

10-12 cups of bread (or two loaves of old bread)
1 liter of milk (or 2-3 cups of milk)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk
2-3 cups of diced fruit (choose firm, crunchy fruit like pears, apples, or even pineapples)
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cinammon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two cake pans and set them aside.

2. Take your old bread and dump into a big mixing bowl. Add milk and make sure all the bread gets soaked. Cover and leave in the fridge for about 1 hour.

3. When the bread is nice and soft, with clean hands mash the bread together until everything is mushy and well-mixed. Add the four eggs and mix with a spoon.

4. After mixing the eggs into the bread mixture, add the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix very well.

5. Add the diced fruit. I make my diced fruit even better by pre-cooking the apples and pears in a pan with butter and sprinkling it 2-3 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon. This makes the fruit nice and tasty. The pineapple I just dice in small cubes and mix it without pre-cooking it.

6. Again, make sure all the diced fruit is thoroughly mixed in the bread mixture. Now divide the mixture between the two cake pans. Bake for about 45-50 minutes in the oven or until the tops of the pudding are golden brown and when pierced with a toothpick, the stick comes out clean.

7. Let cool and slice into squares before serving. Makes about 40 squares. This recipe can be halved for those who prefer to make a smaller batch.

Crispy Spam Rolls

There are those who hate this word with a passion - SPAM. No, I am not talking about that rubbish you get in your inbox. I'm talking about that pink luncheon meat in a can. Hey, I'm Filipino and we inherently love Spam (it saved us from hunger in the 2nd WW).

Now there are different ways to fix Spam and make it more tasty for those who can't stand it. One way, wrap in spring roll wrapper and deepfry. Dunk in a lemony-salty sauce and you've got yourself a winner. Now let me show you how it's done. (I first encountered this when I was in high school and in one of our dances, this was served).

CRISPY SPAM ROLLS



This makes for great appetizers or party food for kids.

Ingredients

1 can of spam
the egg white of 1 egg (save the yolk for other uses)
any preferred cheese, the meltier the better (heck you can use Velveeta if you want)
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
spring roll wrappers
oil for frying


Directions:

Cut spam into think sticks, maybe McDonald's french fry thickness.
Do the same with the cheese.
Take your spring roll wrappers and cut it into half (either in triangles or long rectangles).




Place a Spam stick and a cheese stick at the edge of the spring roll and proceed to wrap tightly. Make sure everything is covered so that the cheese won't leak out.
Do the same for all the other spam/cheese and wrappers.





Heat up the oil in a deep dish pan and start frying the rolls when the oil gets medium hot. Take out the rolls when the skin gets golden brown. (Tip: Take a tall colander, line up with paper towels and drain your rolls standing up. All the oil will drain leaving your rolls staying crispy longer).

Make your dipping sauce with soy sauce mixed with lemon juice.

Serve rolls hot with the sauce. Enjoy!

Chicken Curry for my Hubby

When my hubby first had my Chicken Curry, it quicky became his favorite. I was so glad that my mom taught me how to fix it. Which is amusing since she was taught by her friend who was Indian when we lived in Mindanao during the late '60s. So what I am actually fixing is authentic Indian Chicken Curry.

So let's start, shall we?

Chicken Curry

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
1 piece of ginger, about 2 fingers big, peeled and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 onion, sliced
2 tablespoon curry powder
1 bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 large potato (peeled and cut into quarters) or 1 dozen baby potatoes, unpeeled
1 coconut, shredded and milked or 1 can coconut cream
2 tablespoon of cooking oil

1. In a big wok, heat up the oil to a medium hot. Carefully lower the chicken pieces and let them brown in the oil but not fully cooked. When the skin is brown, take out the chicken and set them aside in a bowl.

2. In the same wok, add the potatoes and stir-fry them until they are half-cooked. Take them out as well and set them aside. Do the same with the bell pepper slices until the edges are brown and set them aside.

3. In the same wok, add the ginger slices. Saute them for 2 minutes.

4. Add the minced garlic and saute them until it becomes golden-brown. Add the onion and saute until they've become translucent.

5. Add the curry powder and saute for 1 minute. Add the chicken pieces along with the juices that pooled in the bowl. Stir-fry the whole pan until all the pieces are covered in curry powder.

6. Add the potatoes and the coconut milk. If you are using coconut powder, mix it first with a cup and a half of water.

7. Let the wok simmer for 20 minutes. Stir the pan every now and then to prevent the bottom from getting scorched.

6. Add the bell pepper slices and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes more. Or until the sauce has thickened up. Serve hot with rice or crusty bread.

Garlic Fried Rice (A Filipino Breakfast Staple)

A friend asked for the recipe of Garlic Fried Rice and I thought I had it posted here in my blog. Imagine my surprise that I had none! Good thing I blogged about this in a food forum and I just copied my recipe.

Garlic Fried Rice is a breakfast staple for many Filipinos. Usually it is paired with a cooked egg (fried, scrambled, etc) and a savory side dish (Fried Spam slices, fried dried fish, Filipino ham ~tocino~, Filipino sausage ~longganisa~, etc). I usually serve Garlic Fried Rice with my chicken adobo, grilled chicken inasal (chicken in vinegar & lemongrass marinade), and hubby's BBQ ribs. It has converted a lot of our friends who have tried it (and previously hated or didn't like eating rice).

You start by having minced garlic and cold leftover rice on hand. I use this pre-minced garlic here in Korea.


Garlic Fried Rice

2-3 tbsp minced garlic
4-5cups of cold cooked rice*
1 to 1 1/2 tbsp veg. oil

*Best to use leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice does not make good fried rice.


1. In a non-stick pan or wok add the veg. oil and turn the heat up to medium, add the minced garlic and cook over medium heat until golden brown.

2. Add the cold rice and stir, mash and mix in thoroughly with the garlic and oil. Keep folding the rice over the garlic, making sure it gets evenly mixed.

3. Continue stirring and mixing until the rice becomes a uniform golden brown color and the garlic has been thoroughly mixed uniformly throughout the pan.

4. Serve hot with bacon, ham, scrambled eggs, etc.



(PS. you can do this recipe even with just a cup of cold rice, just adjust the ingredients). Just a tip! (This is for you MissyKaye!)

Authentic Chicken Afritada

I recently saw a recipe for Chicken Afritada on a Serious Eats website and was startled to see a can of Hunts Pork & Beans included in the list of ingredients. What the hey? Pork & Beans in Afritada? I don't think so. I have blogged about Afritada before, only it was Pork Afritada .

Now this time, lemme share my mom's Chicken Afritada recipe. And it does not have pork & beans in it.

Chicken Afritada Recipe



1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks 2X2 inch
2 potatoes, medium sized and cut into chunks
1 large bell pepper, cored & seeded, cut into strips
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 large tomato, cut into chunks
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small can of tomato paste
1/3 cup of soy sauce
5 tbsp vegetable oil
water
salt and pepper

1. In a large wok add the oil and heat until hot. Add the chicken pieces and fry until all the pieces get light-brown all over. Take out the chicken and set aside in a large bowl.
2. Add bell pepper slices and stir fy them for 5 minutes. Take them out and set aside.
3. Add the minced garlic and fry until golden brown. Add onion chunks and stirfry for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and stirfry for 5-7 minutes until the tomatoes are nice and soft.
4. Add tomato paste to the wok and stirfry for 5 minutes. No short cuts, you need to fry the tomatoe paste until it almost exudes oil on the pan. This is to make sure that the paste is thoroughly cooked before the meat is added back again.
5. Add the chicken back into the wok (plus the accumulated juices) and the carrots. Stir everything until all are coated with the red sauce. Add water until it covers the meat and ingredients completely. Add soysauce too. Bring to a boil.
6. When the sauce starts to boil, lower the heat so that it simmers. Cover the wok and let it simmer for 30 minutes. You would need to stir the contents every 7-10 minutes so that nothing sticks to the bottom.
7. Add the potato chunks and the bell pepper strips. By this time the sauce has reduced to almost half level. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are done. Salt and pepper to taste.

To serve this, just put a couple of chicken pieces plus veggies on a plate beside a mound of rice. In my family, we usually have something like slices of cucumber to refresh the palate for every afritada bite. Pickled vegetables would also work as a side dish. Happy eating!

A Noodle with a Hundred Ingredients (Pancit Bihon)

Ok, ok, maybe not a hundred, but my family's Pancit Bihon recipe has a lot of ingredients which makes it soooo good and so special. Pancit Bihon is one of the wonderful Chinese dishes that have become Filipino. It's a staple in birthday parties and even special occasions in the office. They say that the long noodles means long life for the birthday celebrant or long success for the business.

In my family, it's a wonderful afternoon snack that my mom and my brother fix for the whole family. The noodles used are called "bihon" (hence the name) which are thin rick stick noodles. The ingredients can be as sparse as just onions, cabbage and green beans or as lavish as containing pork, chicken, chinese sausage, etc. It can be adapted as a vegetarian dish or can be a "clean-out-your-veggie-bin" dish.

Anyway, let me teach you the basics on how to do this wonderfully tasty noodle snack.

Pancit Bihon

1 package rice noodles (bihon), sometimes it would say makes 1 kilo
2 cups chicken or pork broth (a must, don't substitute water)
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 onion, thinly julienned (sliced into long, thin strips
1/2 carrots, thinly julienned
1 green bell pepper, thinly julienned
1 cup green beans, thinly julienned (beginning to get the idea?)
2 cups of cabbage, thinly shredded
1 cup cooked chicken meat, flaked
1 cup cooked pork, thinly julienned (this must have fat on it, trust me)
1 chinese sausage, thinly julienned
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
salt & pepper

1. The preparation for this dish is time consuming, thinly slicing almost everything and boiling the meat (chicken & pork). But once you get everything prepared, it takes about 20-30 minutes to cook everything in a large wok. In a large basin, soak the rice noodles in warm water for about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in the wok, when hot dump the minced garlic. Stirfry for about half a minute until light golden brown. Add the sliced onions next. Again, stirfry for a minute until the onions are translucent.

3. Do this technique for the following veggies: carrots, green beans and then bell pepper. After everything is stirfried in the wok. Add the cooked meat and sausage. Stir-fry for a minute

4. Add the chicken broth to the wok. Let it come to a simmer, add the drained rice noodles. With two spatulas (or chopsticks if you prefer) start mixing the noodles and the ingredients in the wok. Continue doing this until the noodles are throughtly mixed with the veggies.

5. Add the soy sauce and the cabbage. Again, mix and stir everything up. Let the noodles cook until all the broth is absorbed by the noodles and the color is uniform all over. Salt and pepper as desired. This would take 5-7 minutes.

6. Serve hot with Puto (Filipino rice cake) or garlic toast on the side. Add a half of calamansi fruit to individual plates so that it can be squeezed over the noodles. If you don't have calamansi, add lemon wedges instead.

Enjoy your Pancit Bihon!

New Eggs and Mushrooms Adobo

I am fortunate to have a good friend who works for a huge poultry farm. Catherine, a poultry vet, is married to the son of a poultry farm magnate. They have about 200,000 to 300,000 chickens at their farms every month. They sell chicks to little poultry farms everywhere in Korea. Once in a while, Catherine comes over to give me two trays of new eggs. What are new eggs? They are eggs laid for the very first time by young hens. They are quite tiny and the yolks are rich and utterly delicious.

So after countless omelets and egg dishes, I thought of making eggs adobo. Then, in a brilliant after thought, I remembered I had a bunch of button mushrooms in the vegetable bin in the fridge. How about adding that too? I've always loved Adobo Mushrooms as an appetizer. Let's go to recipe, shall we?

Ingredients:

6 new eggs (or 12 quail eggs as substitute)
20 pieces button mushrooms
1 whole head of garlic (yes a whole head, peeled and minced)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2-3 tablespoons oil

1. In a saucepan, put the eggs and add cold water. Heat up until the water boils and turn off the heat. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, drain the hot water and dunk the eggs in cold water to stop the cooking. Crack and peel the eggs and set aside.

2. Wash the mushrooms (trust me, its ok even though the other sites tell you not to do it) and cut the ends off if necessary.

3. In a large wok or pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and stir-fry until golden brown. How do you know that the garlic is nearly done? You can start to smell the fragrant garlic. And it is easy to burn it so once you smell it, add the next ingredient right away.

4. Add the button mushrooms and stirfry for about 3-4 minutes (or when the mushrooms begin to exude liquid). Add the cooked eggs.

5. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Make sure to stir every once in a while to make sure the eggs get thoroughly coated.

6. Serve hot as a side dish or as a main dish with freshly cooked rice.





For my lunch, I had it as a side dish with meat torta patties. It was wonderful!

Making Flied Lice

Ok, ok I am just kidding. I really mean Fried Rice, specifically Chinese Fried Rice or more commonly known as Shanghai Rice in the Philippines. The neat thing about rice is that leftover rice is great recycled into a new dish - fried rice. One very important thing to remember is that to make fried rice you would need cold, leftover rice. Freshly cooked rice just won't do.

To make Chinese Fried Rice, you would need: chinese sausages (the ones with whole fatty pieces in them), dried scallops (or dried fish), small shrimps, eggs, spring onions, soy sauce and cooking oil.

Ingredients:

3 or cups of cooked, leftover rice
1 chinese sausage, diced
dried scallops, (soaked, squeezed dry, and minced)
small shrimps, peeled
eggs, beaten lightly
spring onions, cut into small circles
1 teaspoon soy sauce
4 tablespoons corn oil

1. In a large bowl, dump the rice. Wet hands and mash the rice until the grains are separated and not clumped up.

2. In a large wok, heat up 1 tablespoon of oil and cook the eggs (scrambled style). Take it out and set aside in a bowl.

3. Put the rest of the oil in the wok and fry the chinese sausage. Add the scallops, shrimps and fry for a minute. Dump all the rice and begin to stir-fry for 5 minutes. Make sure the rice is evenly mixed and keep stirring all the time.

4. After about 2 minutes more of stirring, add the scrambled eggs and continue stirring for a minute and then the soy sauce. Stir some more.

5. Take out the rice and put in a large platter. Sprinkle the chopped spring onions over it and serve hot.

*TIP: Fried rice is not limited to the above ingredients alone. It can be a clean-out-your-fridge type of fried rice. You can add carrots, leeks, cabbages, ham, mushrooms, etc. Anything you find delicious you can add to your rice, make sure that the ingredients are diced or chopped up small. It will make for even cooking when you add it to the rice.

Guinataang Baboy (Pork Stewed in Coconut Milk)

Now I've always been saying that Filipinos love their pork. One of the many ways we enjoy our pork is stewed in coconut milk. There is actually a province in the Philippines that specializes in everything cooked with coconut milk - the Bicol province. That province is also known for its fiery, hot chili-spiced dishes. Anyway, I digress. Here is a quick and easy recipe for Guinataaang Baboy or Pork Cubes Stewed in Coconut Milk.

"Guinataan" means cooked with coconut milk. It can be a savory dish like Guinataang baboy or Guinataang Isda (Fish Coconut Stew) or it can be a sweet dish like the common afternoon snack just simply called "Guinataan". The latter contains cubes of plantains, sweet potato, rice balls, slices of jackfruit, etc. So, keep that in mind whenever you come across the word - Guinataan.

Now, onto the recipe. You'll need:

Ingredients
1/2 kilo (or 1 pound) Pork cubes (preferably with some fat on some pieces)
3-4 cups of water
1 coconut, grated and then extracted (milk)++
1/2 onion, sliced
4-5 cloves of garlic, coarsly minced
1 red bell pepper, seeded, cored and sliced into 1-inch squares
5-6 pieces of yard long beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
3-4 pieces of green chilis (the mild, sweet kind)***
Optional: cubes of carrot (which I added for a nice touch of color) and potatoes.

++Substitute a can of coconut milk or two pouches of powdered coconut milk mixed with 2 cups of water.
***If you like your stews fiery-hot, substitute habaneros or other hot chilis of your choice.

1. In a wok or deep pan, add the water and pork. Cook for about 30 to 45 minutes or until the pork has become tender.

2. Take out the pork stock and set it aside for other dishes. Take out the pork and set it aside. Put a little oil on the pan and heat it until hot.

3. Add the garlic and cook until it is golden brown. Add the onion slices and cook until they are translucent (about 2 minutes). Add the green beans, carrot and potato cubes too.

4. Add the cooked pork and saute until the pork edges turn brown. Add the coconut milk and turn down the heat to low. Add the green chilis (sliced if you like or cut in half) and bell pepper.

5. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until the coconut milk turns thick and saucy.

Serve hot with freshly cooked rice. This also makes a perfect side dish to a fried fish meal like what I had for lunch today.