Minced Pork with Potatoes and Carrots AKA Pork Giniling

Happy Monday!

As we all know, I just opened this blog yesterday and I'm still in my honeymoon phase. Meaning, I'm likely to write regularly for the next couple of days. Hopefully though, I get to maintain! That's what matters in the end, isn't it?

I have started working again full time and today I wanted to prepare something easy and simple after a long day at work. I don't know if it's just me but everything feels exactly how I left. There weren't any awkward encounters with anyone in the ofice and it was actually smooth during lessons too, except when I noticed most of my students actually forgot our names lol I'm not sure if I should feel bad that I am not as memorable as a teacher or I should just forget about it considering that it was the longest break they've had after all?

Anyway, as I was saying, I wanted something easy and simple for today so I decided to do minced pork with carrots and potatoes and fried fish for dinner. We all know how to fry fish, right? It's basically the basics of whatever is basic, other than boiling a hard boiled egg of course. But just to go through it a bit, white fishes like red snappers and seabass, are relatively easy to handle and is supposed to be exceptionally buttery in texture when cooked right. I know it's probably irrelevant but seabass is my favorite fish of all. It went way past salmon for me, it's the best! I usually fry it in olive oil about 2 teaspoons for 250 grams. Sear it skin side down for about 3-4 minutes in medium-high heat while covered. I don't flip it at all especially if it's a fillet cut that looks like this:

For the minced pork, what I did was a basic "giniling" as we call it in the Philippines. I sauteed everything and let it boil without any tomato sauce. I prefer it without to be honest. I feel like the tomato sauce usually dominates the whole dish when included. As a reminder before we go through ingredients my recipes are usually simple and easy to follow. And I decided to make it even easier by including some pictures (low quality ones, apologies) to guide even the most noob cooks in the process!

Pork "Giniling" / Minced Pork with Potatoes and Carrots
Serves 2

• 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil (you can use canola, vegetable, I used olive oil)
• 230-250 grams of minced pork
• 4 garlic cloves (clearly depends on how much you like garlic, should be about a tablespoon)
• 1 small onion or half of a medium
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1/3 cup of chicken stock or half of a chicken cube dissolved in 1/3 cup or water
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1 potato diced
• 1 carrot diced
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Start by preparing your ingredients by peeling and dicing the carrots and potatoes. Heat your pan under low-medium.
2. Once heated, put the oil and then start sauteeing the garlic and onions.
3. After about 30 seconds, follow the minced pork in and start stirring constantly to even out the cooking. 
4. Once all the outer pink layer of the meat disappears and gets cooked, add 1/3 cup of chicken stock. If you don't have it on hand, you can always substitute this with equal amount of water plus half of a chicken cube. 
   
5. Add another quarter cup of water and let it boil or simmer for about 10-15 minutes.
6. Mix the diced carrots and potatoes in. Let it simmer again for another 5 minutes, just enough time to get the vegetables a little softer but still crunchy. 
   
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste!

These are my ideal meals during work days— simple and easy to do. A little bit of boiling and sauteeing here and there and we're done! Let me know if you have any other suggestions to better this recipe and make it even tastier! It's all welcome.

Until our next recipe!

Your friendly neighborhood kitchenista,