Bicol Express

Pork in coconut milk reduced until the oil breaks out, with a great deal of chilli.

Pork, Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains bagoong, a fermented fish or shrimp paste, pork, shellfish, shrimp paste.

Ingredients

• 1 kg pork belly, in 2 cm strips
• 800 ml coconut milk
• 200 ml coconut cream
• 12 long green chillies, sliced
• 4 bird's eye chillies, chopped
• 3 tablespoons bagoong alamang (fermented shrimp paste)
• 1 onion and 8 garlic cloves, chopped
• a thumb of ginger, julienned
• 2 tablespoons oil

Method

1. Render the pork belly in the oil over a medium heat for 10 minutes until some fat has run and the edges colour.
2. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook 5 minutes.
3. Add the shrimp paste and fry it for 2 FULL MINUTES. Raw bagoong tastes of nothing but salt and fish; fried, it turns nutty and that is what it is there for.
4. Pour in the coconut milk and simmer uncovered, without a lid, for 40 minutes.
5. KEEP GOING UNTIL THE OIL BREAKS OUT OF THE COCONUT MILK and pools clear and orange at the edges. That separation is the finish line: stopped while it is still a white sauce, the dish is undercooked and tastes raw and sweet.
6. Add all the chillies for the last 10 minutes, and the coconut cream for the last 5.
7. TWELVE LONG CHILLIES IS NOT A TYPO. This is a hot dish and the chillies are a vegetable in it, not a seasoning. No salt: the bagoong has done it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes