Like most Filipinos, I love tomato-based dishes such as Menudo, a traditional dish served during fiestas. (Menudo also happens to be the name for one of the earliest boy bands ever which featured then-teenybopper in Ricky Martin).
There is a Mexican dish with the same name, but it is more of a soup, whereas the Filipino version is more of a stew. As much as I like the original dish, I decided to try a simpler form of it – the Menudillo – for two reasons. One, the original Menudo uses pork belly or liempo, which is both incredibly yummy and unhealthy. Menudillo uses ground pork instead, which is somewhat healthier. Also, this stripped-down version has less ingredients, so it cooks faster.
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 medium sized chopped onion
- 1/4 kilo ground pork
- 1 ½ cup diced potatoes
- 1 ½ cup diced carrots
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 ½ cup water
- 6 hard boiled eggs (or a dozen quail eggs)
- A dash of salt
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 6 people
Directions:
- Sauté the garlic and onion in cooking oil for a few minutes.
- Add the ground pork and sauté until it’s a bit brown.
- Mix in the carrots and potatoes and heat for about 5 minutes (or just until they’re a bit crisp).
- Pour in the water and wait for the mix to boil. When it does, add the tomato sauce.
- Simmer for 5 minutes, or until the sauce thickens.
- Add the boiled eggs and serve!
This dish is super easy to make, and you can serve it for lunch or dinner. If you have more time, you can add the other ingredients, such as pig liver, raisins, and green and/or red bell pepper, and grated cheese. (These add more body and depth to the stew).
Or just make Menudo itself, which is equally tasty! (It would probably be tastier if you have a love of liempo.)
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