Binagoongan Recipe, Pork Binagoongan, or Binagoongang Baboy (Pork in Shrimp Paste) is an original Filipino dish. This very flavorful dish will make you crave for more once you’ve had a taste of it. Many Filipinos serve it alone with rice. Many eat it with rice plus boiled or grilled okra or eggplant, or with fried eggplant with a side of unripe mango or Mango Ensalada. You can also serve it as a side dish for grilled “tilapia” or “bangus” (milkfish).
It is believed that the idea of adding “bagoong alamang” (shrimp paste) to dishes was brought to the Philippines by traders and migrants from Southeast Asia, particularly Malaya, Borneo, and Java before the Spanish colonization. In fact, shrimp paste is a common ingredient in many Maritime and Mainland regions in Southeast Asia. It is believed that the original creators Binagoongang Baboy in the Philippines were the Malays who once settled in Central Luzon, a region in the country where the dish is most popular.
The key element of this dish is the shrimp paste. The fermented condiment, made from small shrimp and salt, gives the dish its mouth-watering flavor. It’s sold pink, watery, and fresh in every local wet market in the Philippines. But if you live outside of the country, you can buy bottled shrimp paste from Asian stores. However, the bottled ones are already processed and sautéed to prolong shelf life, and they are usually brownish or reddish in color.
This scrumptious dish is packed with protein. It will be almost impossible not to reach out for a second serving. But you have to restrain yourself from eating too much. It’s high in fat, cholesterol, and very high in sodium.
To make it, you simply cook the pork with the shrimp paste, along with veggies and spices. Instead of adding salt to flavor the dish, you use the salty shrimp paste. If the dish comes out too salty for your taste, you can simply balance it by adding sugar, vinegar, and water. But the best thing to do is to add the shrimp paste slowly until you achieve the right shrimp paste taste to your liking.
You can cook Binagoongan Recipe following the simple steps below. You can make it fancier, as well as enhance the flavor and texture of the simple dish, by adding your favorite vegetables, like string beans, eggplant, or your choice of vegetables. If you have coconut cream on hand, you can add that too.
Binagoongan Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g pork belly
- 3 tbsp shrimp paste
- 1 small tomato
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 small onion
- 1 pc green chili
- 1 tbsp sugar
- ½ tbsp pepper corn
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 pcs bay leaves
- water
Instructions
- Heat a pan and add 1 cup of water
- Add the pork, bay leaves, salt, vinegar, some onion and a 1 tsp of shrimp paste
- Stir and simmer for 20 - 30 minutes until the pork is tender
- Turn the heat off, drain the pork and set it aside
- Sauté the garlic, onion and tomato
- Add in the pork and the remaining shrimp paste
- Add the sugar and mix well
- Lastly add the green chili
- Turn the heat off and serve with white rice
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