Recipe: Yummy PINAKBET (Ilokano)

PINAKBET (Ilokano). Pakbet or pinakbet is a popular vegetable dish that originated from one of the northern provinces of the Philippines, Ilocos. The vegetables used on this dish are usually grown in the back yard of every villager and are available almost all year long. Pakbet or pinakbet ilocano is vegan dish from the northern provinces of the Philippines, Ilocos.

In Filipino surrounding areas, different versions took root. Pinakbet, or Pakbet an Ilocano dish, is stewed vegetables of eggplant, bitter melon (ampalaya), okra and tomatoes and seasoned with bagoong isda or thick salted fish sauce. Pinakbet Ilocano Style This is an original and very popular Filipino genre dish. You can have PINAKBET (Ilokano) using 12 ingredients and 7 steps. Here is how you cook that.

Ingredients of PINAKBET (Ilokano)

1. Prepare 1 lb of pork shoulder / pork belly.
2. You need 1 of onion sliced.
3. It's 3 cloves of garlic crushed.
4. It's 1 of roma tomato sliced.
5. You need 3 tbsp of Fish Sauce.
6. It's 1/2 of bitter gourd (ampalaya).
7. Prepare 1 of eggplant sliced diagonally.
8. You need 1 cup of large diced squash.
9. You need 5 pcs of okra halved across.
10. Prepare 8 pcs of string beans (into 3 inch long).
11. You need 1 of small sized ginger smashed.
12. It's 1 cup of water.

This is also one of the easiest dish to cook because you just need to put everything in the pot, let boil until cooked. Pinakbet Ilocano, sometimes called Pakbet, is a dish made from a variety and colorful vegetables. In the long Ilocano tradition, the way we cook it is to simply boil all the vegetables with water and bagoong. There is no sautéing involve in cooking the dish, except that when you fry a meat as an additional ingredient.

PINAKBET (Ilokano) instructions

1. Cook meat until fat is rendered, remove excess oil. Add garlic cook until slightly browned..
   
2. Add onions and tomato. Cook until onion is translucent at tomato is soft and almost mushed..
3. Add fish sauce/ shrimp paste, then add ginger to lessen pungency of the fish sauce. Stir until the meat is coated with the sauce..
4. Add water then bring to a boil..
5. Add in okra and eggplant first and cook for 1 minute. Then add the rest of the vegetables (string beans, squash, bitter gourd)..
6. Simmer until the vegetables are cooked and sauce is reduced..
7. Serve hot. Best eaten with steamed rice. Enjoy!.

I grew up in an Ilocano province of La Union and I will share it to you how. Pinakbet or Pakbet originated in Ilocos Region. It is a dish of mixed vegetables like ampalaya (bitter gourd), sitaw (long beans), talong (eggplant), okra, and kalabasa (squash). The Ilocano way of cooking pinakbet uses fish bagoong sauce instead of bagoong alamang. I also add patani in it to have a better aroma and to make it tastier.