Whenever you cook and eat at home you have two option. First just simply throw in whatever you cook in a plate or add a bit of artistic presentation to turn a simple dish into something you'll only have at an expensive restaurant. The only difference is that it only cost a fraction of what you'll pay for in a restaurant.
This time I wanted a simple vegetable dish and when I looked into our refrigerator the first thing that came into my mind was "Pinakbet". A popular Filipino dish from the northern part of Luzon. The ethnic group who popularized pinakbet were the ilocanos. The dish is a combination of vegetables commonly seen in their backyard such as egg plant, squash, lady finger, bittergourd, long beans, malungay (Moringa) pods and a bit of meat or fish then salted with a fermented monamon ( A local equivalent of anchovies).
This is the easiest dish that anyone can cook and it will be ready in less than 30 mins. Let's look at the ingredients:
1 small squash cut into cubes
a bunch of malungay/moringa pods. Remove the hard dark green peel
5-6 pcs small eggplants
5-6 pcs lady finger or Okra
1 can of anchovies (1/4 cup Fermented Monamon or Bagoong Isda)
200g pork (Soft bone) or fried/grilled milk fish.
2 pieces tomatoes cut into 4 pieces each and seeded
1 onion chopped
a slice of ginger
Optional 3-4 pcs small native bittergourd. If you don't like bitter taste in your soup do not cut them. I didn't have bittergourd in my refrigerator this time and my wife doesn't like it anyway.
To start with, boil the pork soft bone for 5 minutes and throw away the water then set aside the pork. In a claypot, boil about 2 cups of water then drop the tomatoes, onion and ginger. After 5 minutes drop the anchovies including the olive oil and stir to dissolve the anchovies into the soup. Then put in the boiled pork soft bone, squash and the malungay pods and cover to boil. After another 5-10 mins drop the rest of the vegetables such as eggplant, okra/lady finger and bitter gourd then continue boiling for another 5-10 mins till the vegetables are cooked to your liking.
This is where you can elevate a simple dish into a restaurant like presentation. Arranging the vegetable according to its type on a nice plate then pour over the soup. You can then sit and enjoy the fruit of your labor.
