Pinakbet: Let the Kalabasa Jokes Begin

On Friday evenings when me and The Girlfriend are too tired to cook (and the wallet allows) we sometimes go to the nearby Kanin Club. This past Friday being one of those occasions, off we went hankering for their BBQ and pinakbet, even though I had my suspicions if it was still open or not due to the late hour. When we arried, my suspicions were confirmed and it was indeed closed.

Following this, the entire next day was spent thinking about pinakbet. Finally, I had to declare "Magluluto ako ng pinakbet bukas". (Tomorrow I'm going to cook pinakbet.) Just a note, because we come home late on weeknights, and Saturdays we're mostly not at home, Sunday is our day for cooking/experimenting.

Armed with the blood of my Ilocano forefathers, and (probably more helpful) my new Kulinarya book, (naks!) I embarked on making this "family favorite." (Double quotes because I know there are some family members will dispute this being a 'favorite'.)

When it was decided that pinakbet was on the menu, The Girlfriend and I immediately debated whether to use bagoong isda or bagoong alamang. Her family kitchen used alamang, while we traditionally used isda. Since I would be at thelm of this recipe, bagoong isda it was. But it didn't stop there. The Girlfriend dismissed the bagoong we had, saying that it didn't taste that good. So, I went out to the nearby spermarket, but lo and behold, they didn't have any bagoong isda. So I was forced/destined to use the one we had, and I had admit that even I had suspicions about it. I mean, it was in a non-labelled jar, covered in black specs that could be either rat droppings or mold. I hope it was mold.

The way pinakbet is usually cooked in our house is that we usually have little tidbits of pork, a very minimal addition, like diamonds in the rough. Of course one of the things we liked about the Kanin Club pinakbet was that it had lechon/cripsy pata-esque pieces of pork, so that was I had planned to use. Luckily we had some slightly large pork cubes that were cut for sinigang/adobo, but it would do for our purposes.

In this regard, I followed their instructions to boil, then fry each side about 20 mins, remove from oil and then fry again for 10 minutes before serving. The boiling, that didn't work out bad, I mean, even in my current cooking level I could still boil a mean pot of water. The first frying, again wasn't so bad, it still looked golden brown, but I could still see that it needed more frying before it could look like how it was in the picture (aha). And here was it all went wrong.

The book said 10 minutes, but it was dealing with a bigger piece of pork. Around the 4 minute mark, I could start to see some of the edges were turning a darker shade of brown, and decided to pull the plug on it, which turned out to be too late. I planned to cut the fried cubes into slices, imagining a crispy skin and tender inside. Then reality reared its ugly head, and my dream cubes turned into tough burnt blocks that crumbled when I tried to slice them. I could imagine cooks around the country shaking and clicking their tongues. Sigh, as unuseable as they were, I still went ahead and threw them in.

The other part in which I had screwed up on was the pumpkin. And again it was a mistake on following the book too closely. It said to blanch for 5 minutes, but I forgot to adjust to the fact that a) I was using thinner slices, and b) I was using a lot less than what was specified in the recipe. The only result was that the pumpkin was overcooked, and each piece slightly disintegrated with each stir.

But apart from those two major details (ha) it wasn't a total failure. The rest of the vegetables weren't overcooked, the bagoong wasn't overpowering and had the right amount of saltiness. According to The Girlfriend, there wasn't anything major to complain about, and my meal was rated 2 nods, a raised eyebrow and a polite smile. But then again, she also had a blocked nose.