cooking Archives - Mommy Pehpot

Cooking is a hobby that my family loves. I grew up in my grandmother’s kitchen. She is a great cook and so is my mother. Although their cooking skills is not as great as those who studied cooking classes Los Angeles, theirs is really exceptional (for our family). My mother specially knows how to make a good dish out of simple ingredients. I missed her dishes, specially on days like these.

When I started out my cooking career, I was never good. In fact, I once told myself I will not prepare dishes like Menudo and Kare Kare because it was tedious. I have no confidence in my cooking skill. Later on, dishes by dishes, I learned. I know enjoy cooking and feeding my family with sumptuous dishes. And though I said I will never cook Kare Kare, this has been our weekend dish ever since I learned how to prepare it.

And you think I will stop there? Oh no, I still want to learn more, I want to enroll in a private cooking class and learn how to prepare luxurious meals and foreign dishes. I want to serve my kids (when they are older) a complete course meal. I want them to experience fine dining at the comfort of our home. I can just imagine how fun it would be, serving them hors d’oeuvres, main entree, side dishes and dessert.A friend told me that cooking classes LA offers this kind of course. I would love to enroll on one of those cooking class. It can be good therapy for me too.

I am feeling a bit OK now so expect a lot of articles from me and more update on our contest too. I will tell later why I was don, for now, I gotta go and put on my apron, here comes Chef Pehpot!

My hubby has been bugging me to prepare pochero for him. I am no good on following instructions specially recipes. I am quite used to hand me downs recipe where measurement is always to taste (tantyahan ba). To give in to his whims, I brave the net and look for pochero recipes. I found some and revised my own recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:
(keep in my mind that this recipe is for half kilo of pork, if you have less eaters, you can trim down the ingredients that would suit 1/4 kilo of pork, and if you have the whole neighborhood to feed, just adjust the ingredients, math baby, just ratio and proportions)

Pork cubes (half kilo)
Banana (saba) about 3 pieces or more if you like, cut it in three (slanting) or whatever as long as you can eat it
Pechay 5 to 10 stalks (in our case isang tali)
Cabbage, medium size, cut into 4 parts
string beans, about 10 or more stalks (cut into two)
Potatoes, 2 medium size, cut into 4 parts each
Onion springs, 5 stalks 9or isang tali)
2 small onions, one sliced, the other one cut into 4
garlic, 2 cloves, crushed
peppercorn (about a teaspoon or less)
optional: green peas, garbanzos, pork and beans (about half cup or more if you like)
tomato sauce about 200 grams (or one small del monte pack)
about 2 tablespoon fish salt or patis

Preparations:

Boil the pork cubes until tender, then add the onions (the one cut into 4 parts), add peppercorn and spring onions. Let it boil for another 5 minutes
Meanwhile, fry the potato and banana, whichever way you like, you can first fry the banana then the potato or vice versa, it doesn’t matter that much.
While doing so, add the veggies (cabbage first then string beans and after a while the pechay) to the pork.
After frying the banana and the potato, reduce oil then saute garlic and onion and fish salt. Add the pork and the tomato sauce.
When the veggies change color or when it becomes more vibrant, remove it form the pot.
Cover the pork and reduce heat (very low), leave it for about 5 minutes (go check your blog or mine for updates).
After commenting on my blog, put the optional ingredients, you can have it all or just one or two.. as for me, I always put pork and beans for the kids (sweeter twist). Then add the potato and banana, add some water ( preferably from the pot where you tenderized the pork, about a cup). Let it boil.
Add the veggies and serve with steaming rice. YUM!

I am also no good on passing down recipe so in case you tried it tell me if it’s easy to follow 🙂
Happy eating!