Pork Binagoongan (Crispy Pork with Shrimp Paste Sauce)

I happen to have a few friends from the UK who don't like Filipino food. These friends of mine are expats and love most Asian food such as Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, etc. These expats have been living in the Philippines for at least five years. Despite having many Filipino friends and having Filipinas for wives, they think Filipino food is 'hideous'. Sometimes, i don't blame them, the Filipino food they are exposed to is probably the karinderia or bastardized home cooking that has a lot of short cuts and is probably swimming in lard or oil. With their bias against Filipino food, it would be very difficult to convince them to have a good meal in a nice Filipino restaurant. I made it my mission to convince them that Filipino food is good and the only way I could do this was to deceive them into having an 'Asian' dinner home cooked and hosted by me.

So on the menu was a three course meal which I mentioned to them in advance that consisted of: Fresh Spring Roll (Fresh Lumpia), Dumpling Soup (Pancit Molo) and Crispy Pork with Shrimp Paste Sauce (Pork Binagoongan). The items in their English translation sounds enticing and they probably thought they were having a Chinese dinner. The result of the dinner was a success. In the middle of the meal, I told them that everything was Filipino but Chinese in origin. They were surprised. They asked why Filipino food didn't taste as good as when they tried it, I answered that they just ate in the wrong places. If Filipino food is properly done, it should and always taste very good and is deserving to be world-class. My English guests particularly liked the binagoongan so it is a must that i post about it in this blog.

My version of Pork binagoongan has been road tested several times. The reason I did my own version of this dish is because i just despise most versions where the dish is just too salty and/or the pork has too much fat, or at times the pork is just too tough to be eaten. At times, i've had the dish where it was just swimming in oil. I hate the feeling of eating very salty bingoongan where the sting of the salt and the after taste of the shrimp stays on your tongue hours after eating it.

The base of this recipe was taken from the cookbook called 'Kulinarya' which is an amazing cookbook that every Filipino home should have. Whenever i look at recipes in cookbooks, i treat it as a guide more than a step by step process. I usually feel the need to add or subtract or divert a little bit depending on my taste and my mood. The recipe of binagoongan is basically lechon kawali (deep-fried pork belly) with bagoong (shrimp paste). The pork belly was actually cooked 4 times; stewed, oven roasted and fried twice. It is important to find a nice slab of pork belly that has a majority of meat rather than fat. Most of the time in most groceries, the meat section will offer a pork belly from a rather old pig that is 70% fat. I love my fat but there's always a limit to it. Luckily I found in the Monterey meat shop near my village a nice slab that had more meat than fat.

The first process in the recipe is to boil the meat in water. Aside from the bay leaf and garlic, I added some peppercorns, white wine vinegar (for a bit of sourness) and a whole piece of anise seed which gives it a nice chinese touch and an added subtle flavor. The slab was simmered for an hour, then oven roasted in low heat (200 degrees F) to dry up before deep frying the whole slab in oil in low flame for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, i sliced up the belly into 1 to 2 inch cubes and then fried it again in high heat for another 5 minutes to ensure the pork will be very crisp. Alternatively, the cookbook says you can fry the belly a second time in high heat in its entirety without slicing it if you want the pork to be more moist but less crunchy.

While the pork was frying, i started to cook the bagoong sauce. I would call it a sauce rather than just bagoong because i add some liquid to it to make the consistency more saucy (pun intended). By the way, I used bottled bagoong bought in the grocery. I'm not confident in getting bagoong in the market for three reasons: i don't know how to choose; I don't have a 'suki'; and i think the bagoong in the market is just way too salty. Before cooking, i placed the bagoong in a strainer to drain off some excess oil. After sauteeing the onions, garlic and lots of tomatoes (half a kilo for a kilo of pork) for about 10 minutes, i add the bagoong and slices of green chilli. I sautee the bagoong for a couple of minutes to bring out the flavor then I add some white wine (a glass for half a kilo of pork) and a bit of the cooking stock where i stewed the pork belly. The white wine with the bagoong is just magic. The wine tempers the saltiness and also enhances the other flavors. It is also an amazing addition to the overall savory taste of the dish. By the way, I'm a strong believer that the wine used in cooking should be good enough to drink. If you can't drink it, don't cook with it.

After frying the pork pieces, I drained them in a bowl lined with paper towels, then i added them to the bagoong sauce that has been simmering for around 10 minutes, just enough for the alcohol in the wine to evaporate and to reduce it a little bit into a nice consistency. I also added some slices of eggplant which i grilled in a grillpan. I would much rather grill eggplant than fry it because eggplant absorbs much oil when fried and that oil will be released in the dish when served and my objective is to avoid oily food because we want our dish to be as fine as possible. I use a heavy cast iron grill pan and it is one of my best friends in the kitchen and anything i cook with it tastes very good.

Right before serving, i garnished the dish with lots and lots of cilantro. The cilantro gives the dish such a nice touch and is a perfect combination with the flavors of the dish. This dish has to be eaten right away because the pork won't stay crisp for too long. I would recommend a light bodied red wine or a rose to accompany this dish. Make sure there is good white rice to go with this dish.

Serve binagaoongan this way and i can assure you, your non-Filipino guest(s) will enjoy it. Actually, any person should enjoy it.