Cooking Pinakbet (Stir-Fry Vegetable Recipe)

I already have a pinakbet recipe on this site. That stir-fry vegetable recipe was one cooked with shrimp paste. For this post however, I'm cooking pinakbet (or pakbet) with fish paste. Also, I'm going back to the staple ingredients of pinakbet. We'll make this stir-fry recipe even more quick and easy.

Read on to get my pinakbet recipe.

Pinakbet (or pakbet) is a stir fry vegetable Filipino dish. That's for certain! It may be cooked with seafood, pork or it may be a purely vegetable recipe. Depending on where you are in the Philippines, pinakbet can be a spicy, creamy diningding or a full-bodied bulanglang. To avert confusion as to this simple dish, let's all agree to one thing - that pinakbet is a stir-fry vegetable recipe.

Ok, going back to the basic, right? I'll be using only 3 main vegetables for this recipe. This one's not only low on calories, low on fats, high in nutrition; but it's gonna' be a budget-friendly dish, too. Also, mind that we are not going to need any MSG sprinkles to make our pinakbet yummy! We'll do this the good old-fashioned way.

Ready? Here we go...

Ingredients in cooking pinakbet (pakbet):

• Garlic, crushed and chopped
• Onions, cut
• Tomatoes, cut
• Okra (ladyfingers), cut in 2
• Eggplant, cut and soaked in water
• Bitter gourd or bitter melon (ampalaya), cut 

If you're not such a fan of the bitter gourd's bitterness, just use a little; or you can skip it altogether. Yardlong beans would make a good alternative to this vegetable.

• Fish paste
• Fish sauce
• Ground pepper
• Water
• Cooking oil
• Sugar

Cooking directions for pinakbet (pakbet recipe):

1. Heat the oil in the pan.
2. Saute' the garlic when the oil is ready.
3. Add the tomatoes. Stir well.
4. Season the dish with fish sauce.
5. Cover the pan to soften the tomatoes.
6. Crush the tomatoes so that it releases more juice.
7. Add the bitter gourd. Stir well.
8. Add the remaining vegetables - eggplants, okra; as well as the onions.
9. Add water to cook the vegetables entirely.
10. Season the dish with fish paste, fish sauce and pepper.
11. Allow the dish to simmer under low to medium heat.
12. Taste the sauce of the dish. Add sugar to counter the taste of the bitter gourd.
13. Let it simmer for at least 5 minutes more.
14. Adjust the taste with fish sauce and pepper for the last time.
15. Turn the heat off.
16. Let it cool without cover until it's serving time.

The secret (well, not anymore!) in making pinakbet a bit saucy and tasty is by juicing up the tomatoes while they cook. Also, seasoning the dish with fish sauce early on accentuates their flavors. Don't put too much water as it may dissolve your flavors. Just put enough to have a slightly gooey consistency (gooey-ness courtesy of the ladyfingers, of course). Hmm, lastly... if you want to retain some of the crunchiness of the onions, add them in the later phase of your cooking. I promise you, it tastes so much better!

I hope you enjoyed this one.

Remember me when you cook!