Binagoongan
Pork belly browned hard and then braised in shrimp paste alone, with no soy and no vinegar.
Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork, shrimp paste.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg pork belly, in 3 cm cubes
- 5 tablespoons shrimp paste
- 2 aubergines, in thick coins
- 1 onion, chopped
- 10 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 6 long green chillies
- 400 ml water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1 green mango, in matchsticks, to serve
Method
- NO SOY AND NO VINEGAR. The shrimp paste is the entire seasoning, which is unusual for a Philippine pork braise and is the whole identity of this one. Adding soy makes it an adobo with paste in it; adding vinegar makes it a paksiw. Neither is this.
- Brown the pork HARD first, in the oil, in two batches, 6 to 8 minutes a batch, until the cubes are properly dark on at least two faces. The dish has no other source of depth, so this cannot be skimped.
- Pour off most of the rendered fat, leaving about 2 tablespoons.
- Garlic and onion in, 4 minutes. Tomatoes in, 5 minutes, pressed until they slump.
- SHRIMP PASTE IN AND FRIED 3 MINUTES, pressed against the pan until it darkens and smells nutty. Stirred in raw at the end it tastes only of itself; fried, it seasons everything.
- Pork back in with the sugar and the water. The sugar is there to balance the salt, not to sweeten.
- Cover and simmer 1 hour, until the pork is tender and the liquid has reduced to a thick coating sauce.
- Fry the aubergine coins separately until gold, 4 minutes a side, and add them for the last 5 minutes. Cooked in the sauce from raw they collapse and drink everything.
- Chillies in for the last 3 minutes. TASTE BEFORE SALTING -- it almost certainly needs none.
- Serve with the raw green mango on the side, which cuts 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