Pork Afritada

I found some leftover pork shoulder in the freezer and decided to cook this for dinner with some tomato sauce. Did some searching on the net and found a lot of recipes for Pork Menudo and Pork Afritada, the ingredients differed. Eventually, I just picked the one recipe that had the least amount of ingredients from AllFavoriteRecipe.

I started off from that recipe and tweaked a few measurements, this was what I did:

• 1 lb pork, cubed
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 tbsp fish sauce (patis)
• 2 potatoes (Russet), peeled and quartered
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced

1. Season the diced pork with salt and pepper and set aside in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
2. In a saucepan, heat oil and saute pork until no longer pink. If juices come out, spoon them out and throw away.
3. Add the garlic and onion, saute till onions are clear.
4. Season the pork with the fish sauce.
5. Add the potatoes (NOTE: if using Russet potatoes, do not add them at this time as they cook easily and will fall apart before your pork becomes tender).
6. Add the tomato sauce and water
7. Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for 25 to 30 minutes until pork is soft.
8. Add the bell pepper and let simmer.

This turned out quite good, the only issue we have is that we used Russet potatoes and they cooked too quickly. Will have to add them into the pot a bit later (maybe 10 to 15 minutes later) so they don't get too soft.

Taste wise, this turned out good.

Fried Tofu

Tofu has always been a favorite in our kitchen but we don't get to try a lot of different dishes, mostly because we do not know how to prepare them and we usually stick with what we know.

Recently, Mom brought a vegetarian cookbook and left it with me because she says that we might make more use of it than she did. True to her words, I went through the book immediately and found a recipe for this simple fried tofu dish.

1. Dice tofu and scald with boiling water for 1 minute (to half-cook the tofu).

2. Drain the tofu on paper towels.

3. Dip the tofu in egg and then coat with flour.

4. Deep fry in hot oil.

For the sauce:

3 tbsp lite soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame oil (did not put this much)