Black or White? Green or Red? This time it would be BLACK BEANS since I already have featured white beans and green or mung beans or commonly known as monggo. Red beans is next on the line then. BLACK BEANS AND PORK STEW is a cheap yet great main dish for most Filipinos. A small pack of black beans is only about 20 Pesos but can feed about 5-7 persons. And a small chunk of pork, sliced into pieces can complete a healthy and heavy dish served with steaming white rice.

BLACK BEAN AND PORK STEW

1 cup black beans, soaked in water overnight, then drained
1 ginger, crushed
1/2 kilo pork (kasim/ribs/bones), washed sliced into pieces
1 1/2 liter water
fish paste (boneless bagoong)
fish sauce (patis)
ampalaya leaves

Put black beans, pork, water and ginger in a large heavy pot. Cook until beans and pork are tender, covered. Stir occasionally about every 15 minutes to make sure it has enough water to boil with. You may add more water so the beans won’t stick and scorch. Season with fish sauce and fish paste according to your taste. Before removing from fire, lay the ampalaya leaves and cover. Serve with steaming white rice.

GOTO or RICE SOUP WITH BEEF TRIPE, as I have mentioned in my last recipe post, is the best pair of TOKWA’T BABOY. LUGAW is a local term for glutinous rice soup while GOTO is a Tagalog term for Beef Tripe or the edible internal organ from the stomach of a cow. To some, eating beef entrails may be a sickening dish, but to us Filipinos, GOTO is a ultimate feast in a LUGAW which is sometimes tagged a poor man’s dish.

LUGAW WITH GOTO (Rice Soup with Beef Tripe)

1/2 cup cooking oil
1 large ginger, peeled and minced
5 heads garlic, peeled and minced
3 large onions, pelled and finely chopped
1/2 kilo beef tripe (goto)
1 cup malagkit or glutinous rice
water
fish sauce (patis)
salt
ground black pepper

Wash thoroughly the goto or beef tripe with running water. Remove excess fat sticked on the beef tripe using knife. Drain.

Using your pressure cooker, place the clean beef tripe, 1 liter water and salt. Cook for about 40 minutes until until tender. But if you don’t have a pressure cooker, just place the beef tripe, water and salt in a large pot and cook until tender. This may take about 1-2 hours so make sure you are adding about a glass of water from time to time so beef tripe would stick at the the bottom of the pan. Then, remove the cooked beef tripe from the pot, setting aside the broth. Then, slice the beef tripe about 1/4-1/2 inch strip. Set aside.

Wash the malagkit or glutinous rice with running water and drain. Set aside.

Heat a large heavy pot/pan. Swirl in cooking oil, then saute the ginger, garlic and onion. Cook until aromatic.

Add the sliced beef tripe or goto. Cook about 3 minutes.

Add the malagkit or the glutinous rice. Stirring constantly.

Then add about 1 liter of beef tripe broth. Bring to boil until malagkit is
cooked, stirring frequently, scraping the ingredients at the bottom of the pan. Season with fish sauce, ground pepper and salt.

Serve while hot with TOKWA’T BABOY.

TOFU or BEANCURD or locally known as TOKWA is a soft soybean cake with 80% water. Tofu is a soft fermented soybean white block usually sold in squares. It is often an used to a meal as a meat substitute. One trick I learned from the market vendor – after soaking and washing the tofu with running water, press some of the liquid out of the tofu so its texture will become much meatier.

TOKWAT BABOY (TOFU and PORK) is one of the most popular tokwa/tofu/beancurd dish in Filipino cuisine. It is mostly served as a side dish of Pansit Luglog or Goto, which makes it always available in most Gotohan or Mamihan or Tapsihan.

TOKWA’T BABOY (TOFU and PORK)
4 small tokwa/tofu/beancurd blocks or 1 large tokwa block (sliced into 4)
1/2 kilo pork liempo
cooking oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
5 chili peppers (siling labuyo), minced
1 large onion, peeled and minced
salt
black pepper
sugar
water

Carefully wash tokwa with running water. Place them in a small, clean basin and soak them with water for 10-15 minutes. This would help lessen the unwanted smell.

Meanwhile, wash pork liempo with running water and drain. Place in a small pot with a liter of water. Season with salt. After bring the water to a boil, minimize heat and cook the pork until tender. Then, remove liempo from pot and drain. Slice into bite sizes, about 1 inch thick. Set aside.

Remove tofu from basin of water and drain.

Heat cooking oil in non-stick pan. Fry pork liempo until they turned golden brown. Set aside. Then fry tokwa/tofu/beancurd until crisp and brown. Drain excess oil with a paper lined on a plate. Then, slice fried tofu into bite sizes.

Place the sliced tofu and pork liempo in a shallow bowl. Set aside.

Mix vinegar, soy sauce, chili peppers (labuyo), black pepper and sugar according to taste. Pour on sliced tofu and pork.

Serve your TOKWA’T BABOY with hot GOTO.

Beans are high in protein content, packed with important minerals like calcium, phosphorus and iron, convenient as dried and a staple in most countries. Most beans are produced in Brazil, India, China, USA and Mexico – No wonder beans can be found in main dishes, side dishes, snacks, sandwiches, dips and sauces. The most popular bean recipe worlwide is the PORK AND BEANS making them available in all canned good section of groceries worldwide. I am not really a big fan of canned PORK AND BEANS because: 1 – I don’t like the “can”, metal taste in the sauce; 2 – lots of sauce, less white beans and lesser and almost no pork; and 3 – my mom opened and served  canned pork and beans every morning rush when I was a kid and I had enough of those canned Pork and Beans that I can no longer swallow them. Until my friend, Sunshine, invited me to their house for lunch and served me a home-cooked PORK AND BEANS. And it was amazingly delicious.

HOME-COOKED PORK AND BEANS

1 cup white beans
1 leg pork leg (pork hock)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
3 large onions, pelled and diced
5-7 pieces bay leaves
1 cup tomato sauce (or more)
mustard sauce
salt
sugar
pepper
water

Place white beans in a strainer. Wash white beans with running water. Put the beans in a large bowl and immerse them with water about 1 liter. Leave overnight. After soaking the beans, drain and wash again with running water. Remove the beans with few cracks, wrinkled and with indentions. Then, set aside. Wash pork leg with running water. Drain. Rub the leg with a hand of salt. Wash and drain. chop according to desired sizes. Set aside.

Using a pressure cooker:
Saute garlic, onion and chopped pork leg in oil. Cook until aromatic. Add the white beans. Saute for 3 minutes. Add the tomato sauce,water and bay leaves. Simmer and cook under the pressure cooker for 20 minutes. Then, open your pressure cooker as per pressure cooker’s direction. If both pork hock and beans are both tender, you may season them with salt, pepper, sugar and mustard sauce. But if beans are still uncooked, and the pork hock is already tender, scoop out all the pork hock and place on large bowl. Cook the beans again in you pressure cooker for about 15-20 minutes. Then if beans are already cooked, you may put back the pork hock. You may add extra water and seasonings to attain the desired consistency and taste.

Cooking in a traditional method:
Place the white beans, bay leaves and 1 liter of water in a large pot, covered, stirring often. Adding water from time to time so beans won’t scorch at the bottom of the pot. Cook until sauce becomes thick and beans are tender. Set aside. Heat a separate large pot. Add oil. Saute garlic, onion and choppped pork leg until aromatic. Add tomato sauce and the cooked beans. Then season with salt, pepper, sugar and mustard sauce. Cook until well blended. Add extra water to attain the desired consistency.

Then serve you home-cooked pork and beans with steaming white rice.

Stewing is another way of preparing mung beans or monggo. This recipe is easier to cook than the Sauteed Monggo Beans that I posted previously. Just place all the main ingredient in a pot with water, boil it, wait until cooked,  season it and eat it. Some season it with plain salt but as a Pangasinense, I love the monggo beans with the salty taste of boneless fish sauce or locally known as Bagoong. The combination of the meat, monggo and fish sauce is a flavor every Pinoy loves. Nilagang Monggo is the number one meal I can suggest if you are to prepare a meal for a batallion yet trying to squeeze a budget.

NILAGANG MONGGO (STEWED MUNG BEANS)

2 cups green monggo
5 cups water or more
1/2 kilo pork cubes or pork ribs
1 medium ginger, peeled and crushed
2 tbsp. fish sauce or bagoong
ampalaya leaves or a handful of sliced ampalaya (bitter gourd)
salt to taste

Separately wash green monggo and pork cubes with running water on a strainer.

Pour the water, green monggo, ginger and pork cubes on a pot.

Boil for about 40 minutes or until beans are tender. To lessen cooking time, use a pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes.

Season with fish sauce and dash with salt.

One minute before turning the heat off, add the ampalaya leaves.

Serve with steamed white rice.

Royce asked me to cook beans for dinner but wasn’t able to ask him of what beans he wanted. I have red, white, mung and black beans in our storage. Red beans are commonly known as chili beans, white are those we usually find in canned pork and beans, mung beans are the most popular seeds in the country and are also called munggo or monggo, lastly, black beans are popular American legumes. Since I was craving for something sauteed in shrimp paste, I took the Mung Beans for Ginisang Monggo or Sauteed Mung Beans. Another traditional way to cook Mung Beans is by boiling the seeds with ginger and fish paste. But I like sauteing monggo or mung beans in tomatoes and shrimp paste more.

I know it takes time to get acquainted with the taste of Filipino food just like how I am trying to acquire the Mexican flavor of chili, Japanese spirit in wasabi and Indian savor of cumin. Filipino food are mostly highly-flavored with fish sauce, fish paste, soy sauce, vinegar, shrimp paste, salt and tomato sauce. We feast our dishes that are highly-seasoned because we, all the time, eat them with our staple food which is rice. If I may say, only few Pinoys could eat a slab of steak without rice – Filipinos would always have rice on the plate.

GINISANG MONGGO (SAUTEED MUNG BEANS)

2 tbsp. cooking oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp. garlic, minced
2 tbsp. shrimp paste (alamang)
1/4 kilo pork cubes
2 medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
4 cups water (or more)
1 tsp. fish sauce (patis)
2 cups monggo or mung beans, washed with running water and drained
salt to taste

Heat large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Swirl in cooking oil then add pork. Cook until light brown. Set aside pork.

Sautee garlic, onion and tomatoes, stirring often, until tomatoes are softened, about 5 minutes.

Add shrimp paste, stirring frequently, about 3 minutes.

Add pork cubes back into the pan. Then, add green beans, cooking them about 3 minutes.

Then, pour water. Cover and simmer, stir occasionally, until the beans are quite tender and the stew has thickened somewhat, about 30-40 minutes.

Season with fish sauce and salt to taste.

Serve with steamed white rice.

* Ginisang Monggo (Sauteed Mung Beans) is best with fried tilapia or bangus.

Variations:
* Add ampalaya (bitter gourd) leaves a minutes before removing from heat.
* Add sliced ampalaya (bitter gourd) 3 minutes before removing from heat.