Grilling the vegetables prior to cooking adds a delicious smokey flavor to this classic Filipino dish. Pinakbet is a vegetable dish sauteed with shrimp paste, with or without meat and shrimp. Squash, bitter gourd (ampalaya), okra, string beans (sitaw) and eggplant are the mainstays of this dish, it’s okay not to use all of them. I usually don’t add egg plant and string beans.
It’s really simple to make, the prep work–the peeling and cutting of veggies – is the “hard” part, so let the kids help, if you can make them. In my case, I had to threaten them with turning off the wifi before I could make them do anything. Kids these days sigh It’s the circle of life though — It was comics and game&watch for me with my mom 😀
First grill the vegetables
saute garlic, onion and tomatoes in a pan over medium high heat
add shrimp paste
add water and let simmer for about 10 minutes
add the grilled vegetables. Cover pan and let simmer for about 5 minutes
and it’s done. Serve with steamed rice . Enjoy!
Grilled Pinakbet
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1-2 tablespoons Cooking Oil
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 1 pc Red Onion medium size / diced
- 3 pc Tomatoes diced
- 2 tablespoons Shrimp Paste bagoong / alamang
- 8 pcs Okra small size
- 1 pc Bitter Gourd large size / ampalaya
- ¼ Squash
- Black Pepper ground
Instructions
- Heat a cooking pan over medium high heat, Add cooking oil.
- When oil is very hot, add minced garlic, stir then, add onion, cook for a minute then add the diced tomatoes.
- Turn the heat up to high setting while stirring to cook the tomatoes quickly.
- Turn heat back to medium again and then add the shrimp paste, after a few seconds, add water.
- Season with ground black pepper. Cover the pan and let cook for about ten minutes.
- Add all the grilled vegetables, stir, cover the pan again and let cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off heat. It's done.
- Serve hot.. with rice and or with grilled or fried meat or fish Enjoy!
