Sauteed Vegies with Chicken Gizzards and Liver

Vegetables or Vegies give a lot of benefits to our human body. It helps with the constipation, digestion, and other health concerns of our body. Can be eaten raw as a side salad to other meals, sauteed as is, or cooked well combined with fish, or other meats. 

Vegies with Chicken Gizzards and Liver (sorry for the blur photo)

Ingredients: 

- 2pcs medium sized Carrots

- 1 small cabbage

- 1 small cauliflower

- 1 small bell pepper

- 1/8 kilo Chicken Gizzards

- 1/8 kilo Chicken Liver

- 1/2 cup of water

- 1 small sized onion

- 3 cloves of garlic

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tbsp fish sauce

- salt and pepper to taste

For those (like me) who get their Chicken Gizzards fresh and need to clean, visit How to Clean Chicken Gizzards post to know how to clean it yourself. 

Procedure: 

- In a cooking pot, on a medium heat, pour olive oil

- Saute garlic, and onion

- Add chicken gizzards, pour fish sauce, add salt and pepper, and stir fry every now and then until cooked

- Add carrots and cauliflower, saute for 2-3 minutes

- Lower the heat at this point

- Add the chicken liver on top of the ingredients, do not stir; follow it up with few amount of water. Only few from the 1/2 cup required just enough to help cook the liver

- Cover the pot at this point; check every now and then until chicken liver turns lighter in color indicating that is already cooked. Add more water if there's a need to. 

- Add cabbage, the remaining water, and salt to taste

- Remove from heat, serve and enjoy! 

Ginataang Sitaw at Kalabasa

This is one of my favorite vegetable dishes. The combination of coconut milk and squash make me eat more rice every time I eat. I want the vegetables to be fully cooked and the sauce to be creamy as well. This version has pork slices and dried dilis which make it tastier. 

Ginataang Sitaw at Kalabasa

 Ingredients:

- string beans

- squash cut into cubes

- 6 tbsp coconut powder

- 2 cups water

- pork slices

- dried dilis

- garlic powder, onion, ginger

- 1 tbsp fish sauce

Procedure:

- dissolve coconut powder in water, set aside

- in a pan, sauté onion and ginger

- add pork slices together with fish sauce, and cook until semi brown

- pour the coconut water mixture

- add the squash and cook until half cooked

- add the string beans and dried dilis, cook for about 5 minutes

- remove from heat, serve and enjoy!

Laing

Laing (or dried taro leaves) is one of my favorite spicy vegetable dish. This is cooked in coconut milk. I love it with pork or dried fish (daing). I remember my grandmother used to prepare this from scratch; getting ready by drying the stems and leaves under the heat of the sun. Once dried, she would cut the stem into about 2 inches, remove unwanted parts, then cut the leaves into small bite size pieces. Only then she would cook with coconut milk and add the other ingredients.

Pork Laing

Obviously we can not do such process here as only dried taro leaves in a plastic pack is available in Filipino stores in the city, which mostly are being imported from the Philippines. Thanks to them for making us feel like we’re home too :).

If you will notice, most of the ingredients that I used are just alternatives: dried instead of the fresh taro; coconut powder dissolved in water instead of the traditional kakang gata; and chili powder instead of fresh chili. Taste is still favorable to those lovers of Laing. 

Ingredients:

- 70gms dried taro leaves

- 1 cup of pork cut in cubes

- 12 tbsp coconut powder

- 4 cups of water

- ginger

- 1 tsp chili powder

- 1 tbsp shrimp paste

Procedure

- dissolve coconut powder in water

- in a pan, heat the dissolved coconut powder on medium heat

- add the pork and ginger and let boil until pork turns to light brown

- lower the heat and add the shrimp paste and chili powder

- let boil until coconut milk thickens

- add the dried taro leaves

- mix until taro leaves evenly combined with the sauce

- remove from heat and enjoy

Stir Fry Chicken & Vegetable

Wikipedia explains Stir frying as a pair of Chinese cooking techniques for preparing food in a wok: chǎo (炒) and bào (爆). The term stir-fry was introduced into the English language by Buwei Yang Chao, in her book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, to describe the chǎo technique. The two techniques differ in their speed of execution, the amount of heat used, and the amount of tossing done to cook the food in the wok.

This way of cooking enables food to be cooked very quickly. This uses small amount of oil compared to other forms of cooking. In order to have the output the way you really wanted, ingredients must all be prepared prior to heating up the wok so everything will be within reach while cooking.

 Stir-Fry Chicken Vegetables w/ sesame seeds on top of white rice

Stir-Fry Chicken Vegetable

If you want foods to be fully cooked, stir frying is not advisable as it is cooked very fast and one of the objectives is to retain its color and crispness. As vegetables are half-cooked, some people will not enjoy eating it.

Ingredients: 

 

  

- chicken meat, cubed

- 1 medium sized carrot

- baby corn

- green peas

- 1 tbsp cooking oil

- minced Garlic, Onion, Ginger

- 2 tbsp soy sauce

- 1 tbsp oyster sauce

- 1 tsp sesame oil

- 1 tsp sugar

- ½ cup chicken broth

- Salt and pepper

Procedure:

- heat cooking oil in a wok (versatile, round-bottom cooking vessel) or pan

- sauté the ginger, onion, and garlic

- add the chicken, stir-fry until medium brown

- add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, chicken broth, and sesame oil

- add the vegetables and stir-fry to cook for about 8 minutes

- add salt and pepper to taste

Serve on top of white rice, sprinkle with sesame seed (optional), and enjoy!

Pakbet Tagalog

Pakbet is my top favorite vegetable menu may it be Pakbet Tagalog or Pakbet Ilokano. Pakbet Tagalog is the mixture of vegetables with Shrimp paste (Bagoong Alamang) while Pakbet Ilokano is the mixture of vegetables with Fish paste (Bagoong Isda). My maternal grandmother used to cook the very delicious pakbet that I’ve ever tasted which she would sometimes top with grilled fish Tilapya.

My Pakbet Tagalog

Ingredients:
- 2 medium pieces of eggplant
- 1 medium bittermelon
- ¼ cut squash
- 6 pcs small okra
- string beans
- ¼ lb pork
- garlic, onion, tomato
- 2 tbsp shrimp paste
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 cup of water

Procedure:
- heat the pan and put the cooking oil
-saute the garlic, onion, and tomato
- add the pork and cook until the color turns brown
- put in the shrimp paste and cook for 2 minutes
- add water and simmer for 10minutes
- put in the squash and cook for 5minutes
- add the remaining vegetables and cook for another 10minutes
- remove from heat

This is best with hot rice and grilled Tilapya.